Essence of Pink
by CaraChocoNougat
Summary: Our protagonist wakes up to find herself quite thoroughly deceased... Given the option to either wait for reincarnation or take up a hand-me-down body in the Yu Yu Hakusho verse, her choice doesn't take long to make. However, fantasy becoming reality is not always what it's cracked up to be... (Set after the events of the series)
1. A whole new world

Death… Such an ominous word. A controversial subject too; is it the end of everything? The beginning of something else? She'd never really given it much thought, then again why should she? 24 year olds didn't really have a reason to think of such things. She'd been at the top of her game, training hard for her second attempt at the Olympic games, when suddenly, it all ended.

There are many ways one can die, humans being of a rather fragile constitution and all that.. Unfortunately she hadn't died heroically trying to defend someone from thugs, or jumping in front of a car to save an old lady. No she'd gone the snow white road and choked to death on a misplaced chunk of apple… ok it was technically a pear, but you get the point.

One could always hope that the next time she opened her eyes, it would be to see the loving expression of her beloved, who had saved the day by giving her the 'kiss of life'. Too bad for her that her particular snow white version didn't include that happy ending… Hell she didn't even really have time for friends during her lifetime, let alone a 'beloved'.  
She sighed as she realized how one track minded her short life had actually been, all she'd ever focused on was her fighting and the consequent tournaments she wanted to win. Bringing home a medal to parents who had died in a car crash when she was fourteen. Ok, so she'd lied when she said she'd never really given much thought to death. She'd just never really given it much thought with regards to _herself_. Really, she'd always considered herself a rather level headed person, dwelling on death and its 'may or may not be' consequences was a useless waste of time.. so, she didn't do it.

However, level headed she may be, but the feeling of choking to death didn't exactly turn out to be enjoyable, and sheer panic had soon replaced said level headedness. It wasn't really odd then, that when she next opened her eyes, she was screaming and clawing at her throat like some deranged animal. Her fuzzy brain taking several minutes before it registered that she was no longer choking.

Only, she wasn't sure she even had a brain any longer. Sure, she could see her body when she looked down.. But strangely enough that was just about the only thing she saw. Everything else around her was a kind of strange pale white. No shapes, no solid objects, no smell, nothing.  
She'd been lying down, but as she stood up and turned around there was nothing there. "Hello?" Her voice sounded rather eerie.. sucked up into a place with no walls to bounce the sound waves back to her.

Was this supposed to be heaven? If so, was she even supposed to be conscious? Or was this some sort of malfunction? She shook her head. Maybe she was dreaming and her body was actually lying in a coma in the hospital or something. Though how on earth choking could wind up causing a coma was beyond her.

Not knowing what to do she sat down, there didn't seem to be any point in walking. She had no direction to take, no walls to follow in hopes of finding a door. She took a deep, steadying breath.

"Sorry I'm late."

She turned to the sound of the voice, strangely enough she didn't feel startled or frightened. Somehow her subconscious had accepted that 'the worst' had already happened to her anyway. Her eyes widened to miniature saucers when she noticed the toddler behind her. Dressed in his signature blue and red outfit he stood erect with his hands clasped behind his tiny back as he diligently suckled his baby blue binky.

"Hello."

If it weren't for the fact that she was no longer corporeal, she would've fainted. As it stood, she settled for merely gaping at him, an unbelieving expression on her face. The toddler just stood there looking back at her, waiting for her to come to grips with herself. After what seemed an eternity, she shook her head as if to wake herself and looked him over, doubt apparent in her eyes.

"K..Koenma?"

He gave her an encouraging smile. "Indeed."

She pointed a shaking finger at him. "But you… you're…"

His face was calm and his eyes patient as he interrupted her. "Not real?" He smiled. "If being part of the realm of spirits makes me 'not real' then I'm afraid you are currently as non-existent as myself."

She blinked, then sighed. "So I really am dead then?" He nodded. "I'm afraid so, choking does that to a body."  
She grimaced and unconsciously touched her throat again.

"Why don't I feel more… unaccepting of this fact? more panicked?"

She gave him a questioning look and he shrugged. "Each person reacts different, some accept the reality of it more readily than others. As for the panic, such instincts are part of the body's functions to survive, seeing as you are no longer corporeal, and thus have no need for survival urges, they are gone. You are merely your soul now."

She nodded but then gave him another quizzical look. "But if you actually exist, how come I know you as an anime character from a tv show?"

Koenma rubbed his forehead between thumb and forefinger as though in exasperation. "Ah yes, _that_."  
He sighed before looking at her again. "Well as you surmised yourself, souls end up here at the way station, even when their bodies are merely momentarily incapacitated. Such as, in a coma." He gave her a stern look when she started glowing hopefully. "Though I assure you this is not so in your case."

He started pacing before he continued. "Your world's Togashi Yoshihiro was one such case. He got knocked out falling down the stairs and remained at the hospital, unconscious for several days. During this time his soul resided here with us. Unfortunately his curiosity got the better of him and combined with my staff's lax responsibility he ended up getting his hands on some very confidential files."

He shook his head before he stopped pacing and looked up at her again. "I suppose you can surmise the rest."

She grinned from ear to ear. "You mean the story of yu yu hakusho he wrote was based on the records he found here? As in… they're REAL?"

Koenma groaned. "Well, yes.. Though he thought he'd dreamed the whole thing and thus that the idea of the story was his own creative imagination. We decided to leave things be, seeing as your world and theirs cannot interact anyway, there seemed little purpose in erasing his memory."  
Her face fell, yu yu hakusho had been her favourite show growing up. It had been kind of a crutch for her after her parents had died, and she'd found inspiration for her training in the tenacity of its main cast. It would've been awesome to actually meet them, but with no interaction allowed, that possibility was apparently not an option.

She sighed. "So then, I guess this is the end?" At that Koenma grinned a little maliciously. "Not quite." 

* * *

She looked at the strange contraption that seemed to be holding some kind of fog trapped inside it, swirling around in restless circles.  
Koenma floated in the air beside her, tiny hands still clasped behind his back. She turned to him with a questioning gaze, unsure why he had taken her here. "What is this?"

He stared at the trapped fog, a sad light seemed to emanate from his eyes before he answered. "That, is a lost soul."  
She looked back at the contraption in horror, 'lost' had such a negative ring to it. She took a step forward and lifted her hand, but refrained from touching the glass exterior.

Koenma sighed deeply. "I brought you here because I have a proposition to make you."  
She turned around to look at him, wondering what the ruler of the spirit world could possibly want from her.  
He lifted his chin up to the soul, flickering his eyes over to it for just a second before piercing her with a regard that meant business. "Though she wasn't featured in your little tv show, she is a relation to someone you probably know." He smiled sadly. "That is the soul of Genkai's sister's granddaughter."

She gasped, before turning back around to the swirling mist. The story she knew never mentioned much about Genkai's personal life, apart from having been involved with Toguro at one point. "It makes this a lot easier that you already know much about the three world's balance of their universe, though spirit world balances out with worlds of many universes theirs is a unique case, as they have both the human and demon world. A kind of ultimate form of yin and yang."

He sucked fervently on his binky for a moment as he turned back to look at the sad soul. "As you know, after the Sensui debacle the barrier between their worlds was taken down. Enki won the demon tournament and ruled quite peacefully. We were however, not so lucky with the second tournament's winner." He sighed before continuing. "Yusuke, Yomi and Mukuro are keeping trouble down to a minimum, but according to the rules Onigo has the final say in everything. The third tournament will take place one year from now, but as things are, we need all the help we can get."

She frowned slightly while looking at him, but didn't want to interrupt his story. He smiled as though he understood her unspoken question. "Now, you're wondering what all this has to do with this here lost soul. Let alone with you and the deal I wish to propose."  
She slowly nodded.  
"As you know, Genkai was one of the strongest psychics of this age. Still is really, even with the bulk of her powers gone." He cleared his throat before continuing. "As you may have realized from the Kuwabaras, spirit energy and awareness tends to be a family trait."

Despite her earlier resolution she couldn't help interrupting him. "So Genkai's sort of grandchild had a lot of spirit power?" He gave her a curt nod. "But that's not all there's to it." She turned back to look at the soul swirling around in the glass container again, wondering how she'd ended up like this. Koenma sighed, before continuing.

"Genkai's sister fell in love with a demon, her child therefore, was a half breed. Unfortunately the demon energy inside her waged a constant war with her human spirit energy, which eventually drove her insane. I suspect she might have gained better control with training and the absence of her father from her life left her with little to no guidance on the matter. But I digress.." He gave her a pained look.

"Her daughter, the one whose soul we're observing, was only a quarter demon. This gave her human energy enough strength to keep her balanced, though like her mother she unfortunately did not pursue any form of training. When her demon powers started manifesting in the form of precognitive abilities, she believed she was going mad like her mother before her. Which, among other things, sadly led to her attempting to take her own life."

He fell silent as he looked at the poor soul in front of them. When he still hadn't spoken after several minutes she turned to him.  
"What does all this have to do with me though?" Koenma blinked, as though startled out of his musings. "Ah, yes, I was getting to that." He tried to smile, but it didn't seem heartfelt. "Her suicide attempt was not fully successful, as in, her body is not yet dead. I would like to offer you the chance to take over her life. In return, I want you to train diligently, as you did in your previous life, and pledge your services to the Reikai."

Her eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. "You want me to steal her life from her?" She looked at him in utter shock. He blinked rapidly and shook his head. "Oh no, no! Don't misunderstand." He sighed deeply, before closing his eyes. "I hold deep respect for Genkai and would not wish to destroy the life of her relation." He turned back to look at the soul. "Rei, that was her name by the way, was deeply depressed and even if I were to give her body back to her she would be fighting a losing battle. She is not strong enough to handle her heritage, both mentally and physically."

He turned back to her with a serious look. "Plus I cannot simply place a soul from one realm, into the other. It would upset the balance. No, I intend for her soul to go to your, relatively safer, world. She will be reborn into a loving family, as a normal human child. She will lead a happy life. You, on the other hand, will have your work cut out for you. If you accept my bargain that is." She squinted her eyes at him. "And if I don't?" He shrugged. "Then you'll have to take your place in the realm of spirits until your scheduled reincarnation."

She seemed to ponder this for only a moment. "What makes you so sure that I'll be able to handle her 'heritage' as you call it?" Noticing she hadn't outright refused made him smirk and he turned his back to her in order to head towards his office. She followed him after casting one last glance at the soul, listening as he spoke to her over his shoulder. "Despite my, undoubtedly, many faults, I AM a good judge of character. You're disciplined, tenacious and an experienced fighter. This, combined with the fact that you chose a rather opportune moment to die.." She flinched at his words. "Makes you a very good candidate. Not to mention the fact that you already know the basics of the worlds you will be joining."

She took in the rather limited décor of his overly large office as they walked in. "You said you wanted me to pledge my services to the Reikai, does that mean I will be working with the Reikai Tantei?" Koenma smiled a bit dreamily at her mentioning the name, but then sat down at his desk with an inelegant thud. "Ah, the good old days. No you will not be working with them, as they no longer work for me." He grumbled a bit after that. "Though one can wonder if they ever truly did, considering how well they respond to orders."

Her face fell, seeing her disappointment, he smiled. "Your story ended what was in that world five years ago, their lives have continued in that time you know. They still play a major part in the safekeeping of both the human and the demon world and I help them in any way I can, but I can't say they 'work for me' in the sense that you will be." She nodded, taking a deep breath, she'd already made her decision anyway. What was there to choose? She couldn't go back to her old life, if she waited for reincarnation she had no guarantee she'd have a good life then, or meet any of the friends and family she'd known in this one. If she accepted his offer she'd be able to discover the use of spirit energy, reach heights in her fighting she'd otherwise never have reached and, despite Koenma's obvious reluctance on the subject, she might even meet the guys who'd been a major source of inspiration for her.

Koenma grabbed a stack of papers and placed them on his desk with a pen, then he leaned forward on his hands. "So, have you made your decision? Her body will only remain open to soul placement for another hour, I would love to give you more time to consider.. But I'm afraid time is of the essence." She stepped up to his desk and grabbed the pen.

"I accept your offer."


	2. Training

Right, so, I noticed a lot of people do this whole "disclaimer" thing and I'm not sure if that's mandatory?  
But to be on the safe side, let me just state the obvious: I do **NOT** own Yu Yu Hakusho, that privilege belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi :)

So here's the second chapter! Trying to explain a bit logically how she attempts to get into a good enough shape to deal with her new universe.  
I'm not a big fan of fillers, but I'm a little afraid that might end up making this chapter a bit choppy..?  
I might try to flesh it out some more in the future ^^

* * *

Cicadas? She felt like she'd been stuffed into an oven. Lifting a hand to her forehead she groaned while trying to recollect her thoughts. What happened? Where was she?  
"You might be groggy for a while as an after effect of the sleeping pill overdose, we removed them from your stomach of course, but your body still took quite a hit."

She opened her eyes and blinked at the bright sunlight. Koenma was leaning over her in his teenage form, around them she noticed a room which could be described in one simple word: **_pink_**.  
She groaned again and sat up, it felt like she was sitting in a candy cane or something. Everything around her was fluffy, pink or both. "What is this place?"

Koenma looked around, as if he only now noticed the small, girly room they found themselves in. "Your room."  
She contorted her face into a vile kind of grimace. "You're joking." He smiled as she sighed. "Guess I'll have to redecorate."

She stood up, noticing she was a lot shorter than Koenma was, the shortness made her pause.. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had this feeling she should be taller, but like some fleeting dream she couldn't fully grasp at the image of it. Shrugging she made her way over to a large oval mirror standing in a corner.  
She blinked owlishly at her reflection, somehow the reflection seemed unfamiliar.. but she couldn't remember what it was supposed to be either.  
She had long straight hair which, with its pink colouring, blended nicely with her surroundings, she thought sourly.  
Her eyes were huge and a deep sapphire blue, aside from her eye colour, her body having more rounded curves and the fact that her hair wasn't curly, she had to admit she kind of looked like the young version of Genkai. She smirked, that wasn't all that bad.

Then suddenly everything hit her all at once. She had a new body, a new life. She was going to learn to master spirit energy and work for Koenma.  
She whirled around to face him. He had sat down on the bed she'd vacated and was looking towards her patiently, obviously not surprised that it had taken her a while to get her bearings. He smiled at her. "Welcome to your new universe. I hope it will be to your liking."

She grimaced again as she looked around at the painfully pink room. "What kind of person was she anyway?"  
Koenma shrugged. "It is irrelevant as you are now her, who she was no longer exists. But as you can surmise from the room she was a bit of a girly girl, easily scared and shy. I should warn you that you will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows now that your character will display a 180 to the people who know you."

She listened to him as she inspected her long, painted nails and frilly dress, frowning immediately upon discovering the offending garment on her body.  
"I should also remind you that you are known here as Rei, I recommend not trying to change it to your previous name, given her mother's history we don't want anyone to start suspecting you're delusional."  
She nodded as she was turning her neck around to get a glimpse of her backside. "How come I can remember my name, my life even, but somehow I don't recall what I'm supposed to look like?"

She gave him a curious gaze when he chuckled. "Did you even read the papers before signing them? Erasing your image from your memory was part of the contract, having a complete stranger stare back at you from the mirror can be rather.. disconcerting. This way you're free to get accustomed to your new appearance without feeling like you're not _you_ anymore. The strange haziness telling you you should be different will fade in time. Likewise your knowledge of language was erased and replaced by the one you will use here, though you will not consciously be aware of this."

She nodded, showing she understood. She walked over to what appeared to be a built in closet and ripped it open, starting to scan the contents for something normal to wear. She groaned out loud when she was faced with even more frill and dresses. "So... do I get wages?"

Koenma blinked, he'd been about to continue speaking when she'd interrupted him. "Pardon?" She turned to look at him while throwing an arm in the general direction of the room. "Do I get wages for working for you? I'm going to need money if I want to make this place habitable."

She bend over to toss some horrible orange high heels out of the closet. "Not to mention to gain a decent wardrobe." She held up a frilly top with strawberries on it. "Seriously, I wouldn't be caught dead in this, I'd rather go out naked." She shook her head as she continued perusing the closet's contents, completely oblivious to Koenma's face turning a rather deep shade of red. He coughed slightly in his hand. "Ahem, yes you will receive payment. As a matter of fact I've made sure you have some funds in your account already, redecorating should be no issue."

She sighed in relief and straightened to throw him a grateful smile. He pulled out a credit card and handed it to her. "Now as for certain things you should know. Like I said, your name is Rei Omura, you live in this two bedroom apartment with your father who is away at work nearly round the clock. Your mother is kept in a specialized asylum in the countryside, though your father kept you from visiting her when you were younger and the previous you showed no indication of even wanting to go see her once she became older. You are currently seventeen years old.." She stopped him midsentence. "Wait what?! I'm seventeen?!"

She gnashed her teeth, grumbling in annoyance. "And here I thought my kiddie days were over." Koenma snickered. "I'm afraid you'll have to redo them, as you are attending high school and everything, I do expect you to properly pass off a human façade."  
She pulled up her pink desk chair and flopped down on it while grumbling. "Sure, sure.. I passed it all once, can't be too hard anyway."

He seemed satisfied with her answer and continued. "Now, one of the most vital things will be your training. I'm afraid this body has had none whatsoever, whereas you've been accustomed to inhabiting a fully trained body since infancy. You will need to take it slow, build up your stamina and muscle, once you believe you've reached a good enough level I will hand you over to a tutor to help you harness your energies. In the meantime, don't freak out if you react strangely to situations, people or sensations etc. Your current lack of training leaves you vulnerable and your demonic side doesn't like it, until you take over control it will be roaming free within your body, possibly attempting to take over."

She looked up at the ceiling, waving a hand to herself to stave off the heat. "You mean like with Yusuke when his Mazoku blood took over in his fight against Sensui?" Koenma nodded, though she didn't see it with how she was leaning back. "Something similar yes."

She promptly let herself drop forward again and leaned down with her elbows on her knees, giving him a serious expression. "Ok I got all that. Now, I'd like to ask some questions first." Koenma leaned back, his hands on the bed sheet as if bracing himself as he nodded. "First off, anything I should know about regarding friends? A boyfriend maybe? Things would look a little weird if I had no idea who they were."

Koenma shook his head and she let a rush of air leave her lungs in relief, at least she didn't have to worry about breaking up with some poor teenager. "Her previous boyfriend broke it off about a month ago, she was quite heartbroken. He's in the files on your desk, pictures included. She has a certain clique of popular girl friends you will also find in the files, I'm afraid it's unavoidable that they will notice you're 'acting strange'. Whether or not you wish to keep them as your friends I leave entirely up to you, though needless to say you can't share anything regarding spirit world with them."

She leaned forward a little more as she asked her next question. "Does Genkai know about my existence?" Koenma gave her a slight frown. "Of course she does, she isn't unaware of having a family, she just doesn't keep in touch with them. And you're not going to seek her out either." She threw him a petulant kind of pout. "Why not? She'd be an awesome trainer." He looked at her sternly. "No she would not, Genkai's training would be far too advanced for you at this stage. And they already have enough to worry about, I didn't arrange to have a new spirit detective for the hell of it you know."

She grinned. "Ooh, so I actually am the spirit detective now? Cool." Koenma rolled his eyes. "Well, you will be."

He stood up with a flurry of clothing. "Now, I suggest you start reading your files and commence your training. Today is Saturday, you will have school again on Monday. There is a phone on your desk with which you can contact me if need be, I will send you an assistant in a few weeks when you've started making some progress." She nodded and got up from her chair, unsure how to say goodbye. Was she supposed to salute him? It seemed a little too stiff and wasn't really her thing anyway. Koenma solved her problem by throwing her an encouraging smile, popping open some kind of portal and stepping through it. "Good luck!" 

* * *

Left to her own devices, she spend the rest of the weekend shopping and redecorating. It took her long enough to find a plain shirt with some gym shorts and a pair of sneakers tucked away in the back of the closet before she even dared to venture outside.

She dumped every last piece of clothing and footwear at a salvation army kind of thing before heading into town to get a decent wardrobe. The only thing she'd just barely realized she was supposed to keep was her school uniform, though somehow even that had gained frills and laces that didn't look like they were part of the original design. She hadn't had any scruples in ripping them off.

It took her the better part of the afternoon to get the basics: underwear, tops, shorts, comfortable footwear and so on. It was still only spring and the weather was sizzling, she didn't figure she'd need anything truly warm until much later.

Dragging her bags behind her she'd headed over to a hardware store, buying a new, comfortable desk chair in a nice silvery colour with black cushioning. She didn't want to overstretch her budget by buying all new furniture, so she decided to get paint to just make-over what she had. By Sunday evening her small room was now a simple cream colour, she'd placed her furniture on old newspapers in the middle of the room having dyed them all new colours. The bed was now a plain white, the bookcase, standing mirror and desk a kind of imitation mahogany colour. She'd dyed the walk in closet, the door into her room and both the door and window frames the same white as the bed. The old pink desk chair and the pink fluffy rug she'd dragged over to a second hand store, and good riddance.

Her new chair would be delivered Monday afternoon, by which time she should have her furniture back in place. She fell down on her mattress with a sigh, wiping the sweat from her brow with a paint plastered hand. Koenma had been right in saying this body was way out of shape, she'd have to be careful not to overdo her training. Sleeping on the floor that night in order to let her paint jobs dry properly, she quickly ate some instant dinner, took a shower and went to sleep, setting her alarm clock for 4 a.m. 

* * *

She arrived at the school well on time. Having spend the morning working out she was rather disappointed to find out she couldn't even run without wheezing. Training had been exhausting enough for her to have to resort to taking the bus to school, something that definitely had to change.

She'd looked over the files of people she was supposed to know the previous evening, mostly memorizing their pictures and names.

She was the first to arrive in the classroom and took her seat, perusing the schoolbooks calmly while waiting for other students to file in. Luckily, her own high school days hadn't been that long ago and most of the subject material still looked quite familiar. She looked up as one by one students started walking in, chatting noisily and taking up their seats in little clustered groups. She recognized the three girls that had been noted down as her 'friends' easily enough, flashy colours and frilly things adorned their outfits and bags. Their skirts had been rolled up to show more of their legs and if the protocol had allowed it, she was certain they'd wear heels into the classroom. They seemed to be in some kind of experimental phase with make-up, as they wore enough to pass for a couple of mannequins.

It took a while for one of them to even notice her, turning to her seat in disbelief. "Rei?" She smiled tentatively as all three of them now gave her their full attention, looking her over from head to toe as though she'd sprouted horns. "What happened to you?"

She shrugged. "Nothing, I just felt like a change in style." One of them blinked, while the other two scrunched up their noses. "What style? Plain jane? Come on, what happened to mister fuzz? You never go anywhere without your lucky rabbit keychain." She grimaced, did they mean that horrible pink fluff ball with ears? It had been one of the first things she'd tossed in the trash. She tried to smile, but it must've looked like she had a toothache.

"Can't rely on luck in life you know, we have to move on some time."

The black haired one leaned forward with a look of concern, if she remembered well this one was called Toru. "Is this about Ryuji?" Ryuji, was her so called ex-boyfriend. Before she could answer however the tall blonde snorted. "I told you, no man sticks around if you don't give him the goods Rei. It was your own damn fault he left you." She blinked, suppressing the tendency to laugh in the blonde's face. These were her 'friends'? Damn, no wonder the girl was depressed.

"If all a guy's after is for you to spread your legs then obviously he's not worth the trouble."

They stared at her in shock, like she'd just committed sacrilege. Before they could comment however, the teacher walked in and told them to take their seats.

It wasn't very unexpected that as time passed the girls started shunning her, whispering to each other whenever she came close. She didn't really care, as she had more important things to worry about than befriending teenagers. She occasionally passed Ryuji in the hallways, he was in a different class. He seemed to expect her to grovel at his feet or something, as he kept throwing her these superior looks only to be disappointed when she walked right on past him. He was rather popular and good at sports, she could see why an insecure girl would have been in seventh heaven gaining his interest, only to be disappointed when he shoved it down her throat because she turned out not to be as easy as he'd hoped.

Just for that she loathed him, she wouldn't be surprised if he was telling his friends he'd broken things off because she was a cold fish. Not that she cared really, but it just made her want to smack him over the head for his pathetic juvenile actions.

Training herself was more of a pain than she'd expected. She was accustomed to much more stamina, as she'd been training from the age of six. But now she had to start from scratch and it took her the better part of two whole months before she really felt like she was making good enough progress. She could now properly perform her exercises without wheezing, had a good deal of added muscular strength and her endurance had grown remarkably.

Combined with a nutritious diet she was pleased to note her body was beginning to firm up properly, rather than the spaghetti limbs she'd had before. She was also becoming accustomed to people calling her Rei, and though her school friends seemed to shun her, her father seemed pleased with the changes she was making. After another month of having done some of her more serious taekwondo training, and having reached the desired flexibility, she decided it was time to up the game and hand herself over to a proper sensei.

She dumped her book bag on the floor as she headed over to her desk to call Koenma with the weird cell phone he'd left her. It still looked kind of like a powder box, mirror and all. She flipped it open and was about to dial the number when something strange caught her attention. She caught a peculiar vibe of energy, somewhere in her room.

Cautiously, she turned around to survey the place. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and no one besides herself seemed present. Yet her instincts were telling her otherwise. Her head shot up when she heard some kind of tumbling noise from her closet, without thinking she strode over and yanked open the doors.  
Besides clothes, it was empty. She looked down to find a huge pile of underwear lying at the bottom, undoubtedly the cause of the noise. She sighed and knelt down to fold the garments back up. "Must've just been one of those demon fluke things".

She shook her head, she had the occasional weird sensation and then she sort of 'felt' that something was going to happen, like when she knew a car was going to hit her if she continued walking, even though she couldn't see the madman who was going to come around the corner just yet. When Koenma had mentioned precognitive abilities she'd imagined something a lot more fancy, like seeing stuff that would happen two days from now. Not having a wacky sensation about something that appeared to be going to happen in a minute.

Suddenly she yelped and pulled her hands back, falling rather inelegantly on her ass as she did so. The pile of underwear was moving, not only that, but a low growling noise seemed to be coming from it. "What the.." She leaned forward, coming to her knees and slowly lifting up a couple of shorts. Staring into a pair of huge orange eyes she blinked stupidly. When a puff of smoke rose from the pile she yelped again and smacked the garments down, trying to douse whatever had caught on fire.

"Hey!... hey!... HEY! STOP WHACKING ME OVER THE HEAD YOU STUPID HUMAN!"

She stopped abruptly at the insult, still looking down distrusting at the now exposed creature nestled between her underwear. "What the.." The creature snorted. "Your vocabulary is severely limited, even for a human." His spiky tail uncurled itself from around his tiny body, little silver claws were clutching at the soft fabrics he was lying in, the white of most of her underwear in stark contrast to his miniature black scales. She noticed now that the smoke, which was no bigger than the smoke emitted by a cigarette, was lazily circling up from his nostrils.

He began to sit up on his haunches like a small dog, and she nearly cooed at how cute he looked, miniature black bat wings now clearly visible on his back. His eyes squinted at her. "Don't look at me like that, I'm not a pet." She quickly rearranged her features, but considering his still menacing look she hadn't succeeded in removing the sparkle from her eyes.

He sighed audibly. "I'm your new assistant, the name's Jack, as you can tell I'm a dragon." He squeezed his eyes at her again. "So you better treat me with respect missy." She nodded and grinned. "Wow, so you can breathe fire and everything?" He sneered at her. "Of course."

She scooted over to make room as he moved out of her closet on all fours. He curled his long tail around his slim body again as he sat down in front of her, showing his cream coloured stomach. She looked him over speculatively. "I thought Koenma would send me one of his ferry girls as an assistant or something." He nearly spat at her. "Fine, I can leave if you prefer a no good little brat." She held up her hands. "Wow, no need to get defensive." She smiled at him then. "I think it's awesome he gave me a dragon instead." Jack snarled. "He didn't _give_ you anything, I'm only here as your assistant."

If this had been an anime, she would've sweat dropped. Was it some kind of prerequisite for demons involving fire to have a short fuse? She knew Hiei definitely fell into that category, not to mention the snide remarks.

After several minutes passed she decided to break the tense silence. "Sooo... you're a demon I take it?" He snorted again. "How perceptive of you, I see you're going to make an excellent spirit detective." She scrunched up her nose. "No need to be snippy, I'm just making conversation. If you're so uptight about this why'd you even take the job?"

He rolled his eyes. "So naïve, who said anything about taking this job _willingly."_

An evil grin spread on her face as she considered his words. "Ah, well if it was involuntary that means Koenma has you by the balls doesn't he? Which means your earlier threat of leaving was null and void, which means you've got no other choice but to put up with me and since I'll most definitely be reporting back to Koenma about _our_ progress as a team well..." She winked at him a little maliciously. "You get my drift."

His jaw seemed to drop open ever so slightly before he started grumbling and turned his head to the side in what appeared to be a kind of pout. She smirked at her obvious victory. "Well then, now that that's cleared up. My name's Rei, used to be Heidi, you can call me whichever." He snorted without looking at her. "I'll just call you witch for short." She grimaced. "You know I didn't mean 'whichever' as my name you..." He suddenly got back on all fours and went on his way to the door. "However much I'd enjoy sitting around here all afternoon bickering, I'm supposed to take you to master Kameki, so get your lil tugges moving." 

* * *

Turns out Master Kameki was to be her new sensei, and like her new miniature friend he was a demon of the reptile variety. Creatively enough he was a kind of turtle in human appearance. His shell coming across as though he wore a permanent backpack. His long thin white beard seemed reminiscent of the stereotypical martial arts teacher and despite his calm and friendly smile she had a feeling he was going to give her quite the beating.

"Well well, so you're miss Rei. I'm afraid I don't sense much of a demon in you, but perhaps that is for the best. You appear far too weak to control any decent amount of demonic energy." He seemed to ponder for a moment, looking her up and down. "No I think it's best if we focus on your human energy first."

Jack curled up on a branch next to them. "She sensed my presence in her room, though the little fool didn't bother to take precautions when she tried to root me out."

She quickly threw him a glare before turning back to her new teacher, who seemed amused by them as he nodded. "That is good, you have awareness. We shall see what form your energy takes when forced into a fight." Without preamble he leaped forward and threw her over his shoulder before she could so much as blink. She landed a few feet away on the grass with a loud thud.

He clucked his tongue as he slowly made his way to where she was scrambling up off the ground. "That was.. disappointing. You didn't even try to defend." She frowned as she took a fighting stance, how the hell was she supposed to defend against _that_. His speed was insane.

Before she knew it he charged at her again, she tried to raise her arms to block but it was too late and she felt the bark of the tree behind her connect painfully with her back. A groan escaping her as she sagged down, only to attempt pushing herself off the ground to stand on wobbly legs. Kameki put his arms behind his back and shook his head.

"Koenma told me you were a fighter, but you certainly don't show it." She spit on the ground, her eyes grew wide when she noticed blood mingled in with the saliva. Sure she'd seen the Yu Yu Hakusho series several times and all, but coming to this world she never fully registered that the fighting here wasn't for show, there was no guarantee you wouldn't get seriously banged up.

"I was a fighter yes, but for sports only." Kameki pressed his lips together, seeming to contemplate her words. "I see, then I suppose the technique might be there but you require actual experience." He looked over her trembling form. "Not to mention a higher pain tolerance." He sighed deeply, obviously having hoped she'd be farther along in her training already. "Follow me, we will start by meditation to attempt tapping into your spirit energy before continuing any physical exploits. You need to make progress and you need to make it soon, I suggest you collect some of your things from home after today, you will be staying here indefinitely." She hurried after him into the small house. "Wait, what about school? Koenma said I had to pull off a believable front as a normal human." Kameki snorted as he slid the paper door open. "You're in my care now, the only one you take orders from until I say you're ready, shall be me." 

* * *

Kameki hadn't been kidding when he said she would be following his orders. From dawn to dusk he drilled her, deciding everything she needed to do and how to do it to befit his standards. The only thing he allowed her to do outside of his incessant training was the occasional mission from Koenma, usually involving an illegal demon having traversed between the worlds. In a way, he'd made her the border patrol on this side of the fence, so to speak.

After about two weeks, Kameki had deemed it proper to force her spirit energy out by making her sleep on a spike bed. By his logic, should her energy fail to keep her protected (which it usually did), she'd be training her pain tolerance. The permanent scabs on her back were becoming a serious annoyance and it took her another two weeks before she finally controlled her energy enough to be able to get some decent sleep.

Once this happened her sweet natured teacher decided to go back to physical training, causing her to walk around like some kind of living bruise.

When she finally collapsed during the second month of training her Sensei took pity on her and healed most of her pains before allowing her a good night's rest on a proper bed. It was the following morning that she received a very distressed call from Koenma, whose screaming didn't make it easier for her fuzzy brain to decipher what he was so upset about. "Wait, slow down. What got stolen?" She held the phone a slight distance from her ear as Koenma yelled into the receiver. "THE Ankokukyō, they stole the forlorn hope damn you! Get over here immediately!" She grimaced as he hung up with a sharp click.

Not surprisingly, Kameki didn't seem worried about her leaving the house after a hasty breakfast. The man seemed to know everything, sometimes she wondered just how old he really was.

A short portal trip later, she found herself in a very chaotic office in front of a very irritated Koenma. Drumming his baby fingers on his desk he gave her a sour glare. "What took you so long?!" She just rolled her eyes at his antics to which he glared even more. "You mentioned someone stole the forlorn hope? That's the mirror thing which grants wishes right? They didn't take the other artefacts then?" Koenma shook his head. "No we've kept the three in separate faults ever since that little stunt Kurama, Hiei and Gouki pulled."  
She nodded but then frowned. "Didn't Yusuke break the mirror with his shotgun? Does it even still work? Why would someone steal a broken artefact?" Koenma sighed and grabbed his head in both hands as though staving off a headache. "I don't know! As far as we know the mirror went dead since it shattered. But like you said, why go through the trouble of stealing it if it's a dud? Undoubtedly they know of a way to fix it and though the mirror is less of a direct threat than the other pieces, we still can't afford it in the wrong hands damn it!"

She nodded again. "Okay, so what do you have for me? How many are we dealing with? I assume they escaped into the human realm? Since you're asking me to handle it." Koenma moaned and spread out face down over the table top in defeat. "We got zip." Rei quirked a brow. "Zip?"  
He growled and looked up at her by craning his neck backwards. "Yes, zip! Nada! Niente!" He flopped back on his chair and continued tapping his fingers on the arm support.

"They left no energy signature, we have nothing on our camera footage but fuzz and not a single one of the guards saw _anything_ until _after_ they noticed the item was already missing. By the time the alarms went glaring the culprit had been long gone."

She gave him an exasperated expression. "Then what the hell do you expect me to do? Ask around with a damn picture if anyone's seen the mirror? I doubt they're going to sell it at an antique market." Koenma groaned. "I don't know! Just keep your eyes open. I've told the guys as well, so you're not alone in this. But if you sense anything out of the ordinary, make sure you're careful. We need that mirror back and the culprit in custody."  
She sighed. "Aie ai sir."

As she headed back she pondered Koenma's last words. So, he'd 'told the guys as well' but he still didn't want them all to work together for some reason. She was beginning to get the feeling that he was deliberately keeping her from meeting any of them. Maybe he was afraid she'd act like some kind of deranged fan girl. She snickered. Maybe she would, gods know she'd read enough fanfiction about them to deem herself at least a little obsessed.

She blinked and then yelped as she felt something scorching past her leg. Looking down at her singed skin she notice one very irate miniature dragon staring up at her. She rolled her eyes. "Mornin' Jack." The dragon merely squinted his eyes at her. "Mornin' witch, care to tell me why you didn't take your assistant to a business call?"  
She gasped and then dragged a hand through her pink hair while offering him an apologetic grin. "Shit, sorry. I was kind of out of it this morning." She jumped back when another small blast of fire got thrown at her. "Okay, okay, I deserved that. I said I'm sorry, I mean it. I should've thought of bringing you. Anyway let me fill you in."

She told him everything Koenma had mentioned, though his obvious annoyance with her didn't seem to fade and she knew it'd take a while before her slight would be forgiven. Unfortunately, with nothing to go on, there wasn't much she could do besides waiting for something odd to pop up on the radar, so to speak.

Having heard of the situation, Kameki decided her progress wasn't coming along fast enough and she was once again turned into a walking bruise. 

* * *

She was wheezing as she dragged herself up off the ground, aiming out her focus to try and sense from where the next strike would come. Kameki's speciality was portals, he could vanish and reappear in an instant. Once she'd gotten accustomed to his normal speed, he'd started throwing in this ability, leaving her once again unable to defend herself properly.

She ground her teeth in annoyance. "Clear your head, clear your head dammit. You won't sense him coming if you get wound up." Her energy flared, sensing the blip of an energy signature behind her she whirled and lifted her arms to block. She blocked the hit, but got thrown back from the impact, her feet scraping along into deep grooves on the ground.

"Stop holding back! Attack me already, use your energy! You have plenty, stop being afraid!"

She turned to the side and threw up a high kick as Kameki appeared again, she missed by several inches. "USE YOUR SPIRIT ENERGY! Even the Urameshi boy could already use his spirit gun from the get go, you've built up your energy to the point you could fire several a day. Now stop being lazy and USE IT!"

She ground her teeth again, keeping her awareness peaked to sense where he'd be coming from. "I DON'T KNOW HOW!"  
She struck out mid turn with her leg, nearly touching him this time before he vanished again. "FOCUS!"

Her annoyance peaking, she missed him appearing behind her, and found herself sprawled face forward in the dirt, her back aching from his hit. Jack snorted, he was watching their training from his favourite tree branch. "Still as undignified as ever."  
She glared up at him, before quickly rolling to the side to avoid Kameki's incoming blow. She scrambled back on her feet as her mentor stood there watching her closely. He shook his head. "I didn't want to resort to this, but it seems it is the only way to get your true instincts to kick in."

Her eyes widened as he leaped into the air, palms facing outward. She noticed a kind of green energy swirling around his hands and her body tensed. He was going to use his energy on her, if she didn't avoid this it was going to hurt, bad. Her body began shaking as the area around them seemed to be turning darker, all light absorbed into the bright power forming in Kameki's hands.

She braced herself, looking around for any means of escape or defence. She formed a layer of energy around her hands, much as she did with her body at night when sleeping on the spike bed, but she knew it wouldn't be enough. She clenched her fists, frustrated that she couldn't stop trembling, she had to defend herself, she had to stop this from hitting.

Jack gasped as Kameki continued powering up, flopping down from his perch and scurrying out of the way.

Her sensei was getting serious, a little too serious. Feeling the power increase she slowly felt as though she began to hyperventilate. Gods this could _kill_ her, was he _insane_?! Breathing rapidly, she took on a defensive stance as she continued to shake. She knew running was useless, he'd simply aim the blast wherever she'd be at that time. She swallowed nervously, sweat breaking out all over her body, her heart hammering in her chest, as slowly her physical senses seemed to grow numb in fear. She vaguely heard her mentor start yelling out whatever his attack was called, but the world seemed to blur around her and she couldn't make out what he said.

That's when she saw it, she _felt_ it, somehow she just _knew_. She knew exactly how he was going to attack her, what angle it would be coming in from and how much damage it could do to everything it touched. A strange calm came over her, as she saw the world around her as though through a sheen of water. She knew what would happen down to the most minute details and somehow, she lost her fear.

The light grew brighter, coming closer and she knew it had started. Kameki had released his attack, it now hurling straight at her. Without flinching she looked at the beautiful green light just before impact and she got engulfed in a giant sphere of dust and rubble.

Kameki landed on his feet a little distance from the newly formed crater, waiting for the dust to clear. Jack held his breath as he slowly crept closer. As the cloud thinned, a pink light grew brighter until finally Kameki smirked at his student standing unfazed in the middle of a large pink sphere. He nodded to her as she stared back at him calmly.

"I see, I see." Then he began to snicker as she dropped her massive shield of energy. "We've been going about this the wrong way it appears. No wonder your energy refused to come out for so long."

She gave him a quizzical look as she climbed out of the deep crater. He merely smiled before explaining. "It appears your spirit energy is of a very powerful defensive nature. To tell you the truth I expected you to dodge my attack and then attack me in return while my energy was drained. But it seems your energy, though quite massive, is not offensive at all. Which explains why, despite everything we've tried, you just couldn't drag it out of you."

She flopped down on the ground and let out a heartfelt groan. "Agh, I'm exhausted! This sucks, you're saying I have no offensive abilities at all?" He shrugged as he walked towards her. "You have your physical attacks, due to your many years of training they pack quite a punch. You simply require the speed to hit your target."

A wicked gleam entered his eyes as he looked her over. "And I know just how to get that speed of yours up to par."


	3. First Encounter

She breathed in deeply as she stepped through the portal, looking around at the massive flora and its magnificent colouring in wonder. One thing was for sure, she absolutely _loved_ the Makai. Somehow the air smelled lusher, the plants were mesmerizing and even the sky seemed a more intense kind of colour.  
She allowed herself a moment to admire her surroundings before she set off running at top speed.

After the first week of her stress levels going through the roof, she actually came to enjoy this little game of tag she now played several days a week with the Makai border patrol. Once her confidence grew, the adrenaline that pumped through her veins while outwitting them was severely addictive.

She'd had a couple of close calls, but Kameki had been right, putting her in a real life situation forced her to become faster, and more cunning. Normal training would never make her improve as fast as this did.

Jack had accompanied her the first few times, aiding by causing distractions whenever things got too close for comfort. But now he tended to wait for her at the second portal, the one she was supposed to sense and reach before she got caught. Kameki put her in different locations every time, and the portals were placed farther and farther apart.

Not only did she have to avoid getting caught by the border patrol, whose keen senses picked up a human entering their realm from miles away. But she also had to be aware of any other demons roaming around, with Onigo in charge there was no longer a ban on the consumption of humans, especially those who so foolishly decided to walk into their midst.

She grinned as she picked up the first sensations of being followed, she didn't sense a killing intent so undoubtedly she'd piqued the interest of the patrol again. She was probably getting on their nerves, what with showing up at random moments and then giving them a run for their money before vanishing again. She recognized two of the energy signatures, funny how this was almost starting to feel like meeting old friends.

She grinned wider as she hopped over several jutting rocks past a raging stream of water. Kameki had placed the portal a serious distance from where he'd made her enter, this could be challenging. As she reached the other side of the stream she focused some of her energy out, sending a small orb of pink energy floating off in the opposite direction from where she was headed. Simultaneously she suppressed and shielded her own energy. She nearly laughed out loud as she sensed the demons chasing away from her, following after her distraction.

"This is almost too easy."

She continued ahead at a more relaxed pace, allowing herself to enjoy her surroundings while it lasted. She was almost at the portal when she picked up a new signature chasing her. This one was fast, dangerously fast. Her eyes widened and she pushed herself to pick up speed. As her pursuer closed in on her at an alarming rate she realized she wasn't going to make it.

Not slowing her pace she send out another energy signal away from her direction, though how he'd even picked up on her trail she couldn't tell, she was sure she'd kept herself well hidden. She raced through the foliage towards her escape, nearly sighing in relief when she felt her pursuer hesitate as he took note of her energy moving away.

She groaned as the pursuit continued a mere second later, her distraction having failed. This one was obviously a tad smarter than his colleagues. He'd be on top of her in mere seconds if she didn't do something quickly.  
She skidded to a halt and jumped into a tree, hiding amongst its branches and giant leaves, keeping her energy suppressed. She was at the edge of a large clearing, and she nearly cried out in frustration when she noticed the shimmer of the portal at the other end among the trees. She bit her lip in annoyance, _so close_.

That's when her pursuer rushed past her, she nearly screeched at the speed with which he blurred down below her. Her eyes growing wide when she realized he didn't stop at her tree, instead he moved straight ahead towards the clearing, halting smack in the middle of it. He hadn't been following her at all, he'd zoned in on the energy given off by her escape route!

She nearly gasped when she finally took in the appearance of her pursuer. Black shoes, black pants cinched tightly around his waist with several white belts and a blue sleeveless top, covering an obviously muscular physique. She knew his eyes would be a blood ruby red even if she couldn't see them and his hair was so black it seemed to carry a sheen of blue, his white starburst mark turned out to simply be light reflecting off his spiked shiny hair.. This demon was beyond any doubt.. " _Hiei_ ".

She nearly groaned out loud. If she was caught by _him_ she'd be in sooo much trouble.

She shivered at the deep baritone of his menacing voice as he spoke to the area at large. "Come out here _now._ Or I will burn every single tree in this place to the ground until I smoke you out."

Great, if she hadn't tried to distract him with her energy orb he might not even have known she was in the area already. What should she do? Make a dash for the portal? There was no way she'd get past him. Shit, shit, SHIT!

"I said _NOW_ human!"

She swallowed nervously as he summoned an orb of flame into his left hand, at least the fire wasn't black. Oh gods, what do I do? What do I do?

As he aimed his arm to incinerate the forest around him she squeaked out. "Alright alright! I'm coming already, no need to get destructive."  
She hopped down from her perch on the tree and he spun around towards her, his eyes narrowed. She stuck to the shadows, somehow feeling a little safer with the trees' massive trunks surrounding her.

"Happy now?"

Before she could so much as dust herself off she found herself pinned against the tree, his hand closing around her neck as he snarled menacingly at her while looking her over. " _This_ is what had the patrol running around in circles? Pathetic."

She grabbed his wrist, trying to pry him off her. He held her tightly against the tree, but didn't squeeze her airway completely shut. "Let go damn you!"  
He merely looked at her, his blood red eyes mesmerizingly beautiful and scary at the same time. "I think not." At that she noticed his Jagan opening, it's violet hue making her blink. He was going to read her mind!

She struggled in his hold, but she could barely move an inch. After a few moments she gave up and settled for glaring up at him. She noticed he was quite a bit taller than herself, she came up to his shoulders at most. Was she really that tiny? Or had the anime in her world over exaggerated his short stature?

She noticed his red eyes started glaring at her after a moment and she simply glared equally back, it took her a second but she smirked when she realized why exactly he was getting pissed off. He couldn't read her mind, her shielding abilities had grown rapidly over the past week. Once Kameki had figured out her abilities, they'd focused on honing it, apparently it was paying off even without her consciously fighting him.

"What's the matter? Your evil eye take a vacation?"

She knew it was stupid taunting him, but she couldn't resist. Somewhere deep down she was ecstatic at actually seeing him in person. He snarled again, sounding like a feral animal, before closing his Jagan and pulling his sword out in one swift movement, the edge of it pressed against her throat. "Do you have a death wish human? I'll gladly grant it for you." She narrowed her eyes at him, trying not to flinch at the sharp blade a mere inch from her main artery. "What? No last meal?"

She could've sworn she saw the shadow of a smirk appear on his handsome features. "You might become it." She rolled her eyes. "You don't eat humans, in fact, I doubt you'll harm me, or I would've been dead already." He grinned evilly. "A wise observation, but the only reason you're still alive is because I want answers. How do you enter into the Makai?"

She huffed. "Right, because I'm just going to spill my guts for you after you just mentioned I'd be killed once you got what you wanted." He pressed the blade closer, scraping it along her skin very lightly, a small trickle of blood running down her pale neck. "You misunderstand human, you can either die quick and painless." He gave her a sadistic smile before he continued, obviously enjoying her discomfort. "Or slow and tormenting. The choice depends on your answers." She swallowed and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the cool bark of the tree. No way, he wouldn't kill a human. Though with this new demon in charge, he may have less moral qualms about it than before…

Though he wouldn't still be helping the border patrol if he did right? No way, Hiei may be a sadistic bastard, but he didn't intent to kill her, he was just trying to terrify her into giving him the answers he wanted. Her heart hammered in her chest as she opened her eyes, she was about to toss everything up in one massive gamble.

"You won't kill me, hell I doubt you'd even seriously harm me." She swallowed before continuing, knowing Koenma was going to kill her for this. "Hiei."

His eyes widened marginally at her mentioning his name and before he could come to his senses she took advantage of his surprise by pushing off from the tree, making them both stumble back. In her panic she created a shield around him, trapping him in place, before she darted off towards the portal at top speed. She didn't look back as she hurled herself through it, landing inelegantly in front of Kameki's feet, flat on her stomach. She rolled over on her back and grinned up at him sheepishly as the portal closed up behind her.

"That took longer than expected."

* * *

Deciding not to tempt fate for a bit, she continued training on her shields the following week, rather than running around the Makai playing tag with demons.

Kameki had been quite interested in her telling of her run in with Hiei and how she'd managed to get away. Thus he wanted her to focus on projecting her shield on others, both for protecting allies and holding down foes. To her everlasting frustration, she sucked at it.

Somehow the Hiei situation had been a kind of panicked fluke. Five days in and they received a royal visit, honestly she'd expected Koenma to come bursting in straight after the incident.

As Kameki called her inside she did notice the _very_ annoyed teenage Koenma beside him though. He looked as if he was about to tear something to shreds. He was sucking his binky so hard she was afraid he might end up swallowing it. As they walked into the living room he didn't even bother to wait for them to be seated before whirling around and yelling. "What the _hell_ were you thinking?!" He glared at Kameki. "And yes by _you_ I mean both of you!"

He narrowed his eyes further at Kameki's unflinching face before turning back to Rei. "Suddenly, I receive a _very_ interesting report from Mukuro's border patrol. Of course I've known about the strange human that's been showing up on and off and has somehow eluded them, thus Hiei was asked to help them out. Funny how he hands me a report about a human _girl_ who happens to resemble quite closely to a certain human psychic!"

He nearly shook the ceiling with his loudness at the end of his rant, glaring daggers at her. She merely shrugged. "How was I supposed to know Hiei was still working with them?" She grinned then. "Hey, you should be proud, your spirit detective managed to escape Hiei. That's no mean feat I'm just saying."

He continued glaring at her. "You very well could not have been so damn lucky." She shrugged again. "Not like Hiei would've seriously harmed me, and his Jagan didn't work on me so I doubt he'd have gotten any information or would've been able to erase my memory."

Koenma rubbed his forehead between two fingers. "And if they would've dragged you over to me for questioning? Kind of awkward don't you think? Hell they think you're probably part of some demon smuggling ring or something!" She blinked before grinning. "Really? Cool."

Koenma nearly blew a fuse. "NOT COOL! FOOLISH, DAMN YOU!" Kameki finally sighed and decided to step in. "The Makai training has helped her improve her skills greatly and she is correct, the border patrol would not harm her. I make sure to put her in relatively safe areas, any other demons she might come across she should be able to outrun or defeat in battle. Why are you so against the Reikai Tantei finding out about her?"

Koenma paled and Kameki's mouth quirked up a bit. "That is the only real reason I can come up with for you being this upset about the situation."

Koenma groaned before flopping down in a cross legged position on one of the cushions placed around the low table. "I don't want them to know about this because they have enough crap to deal with. The issues in the Makai are taking up all of their time, I don't need them to know that things aren't quite as perky in the Ningenkai as I made them out to be. They would feel the need to start dividing their time between too many issues, especially Yusuke and Kurama. So, I found myself a new spirit detective." He gave Rei a piercing look.

"Other than that I was hoping we might be able to use you as a trump card in the Makai situation. If you're known and seen with the Reikai Tantei, that possibility would fly out the window." She rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you just tell me this in the first place?" He squinted at her. "I know how much you look up to them, I was afraid you would refuse my offer if I told you from the get go that I intended you not to meet them at all."

She grumbled a bit. "Gee thanks, such faith. I may look up to them but I'm not some addict or anything. If I'd really wanted to, I could've gone seeking them out you know, Kuwabara's school and Keiko's parent's diner shouldn't be too hard to find. Even Genkai's temple."

Koenma muttered something and leaned forward on his elbows on the table, making Kameki frown at him.

"I know, it's all moot now anyway. I need you to help them out."

Her eyes practically started sparkling at this. "Really?!" He raised a brow at her obvious excitement, she looked like Christmas had come early. "Yes, really."  
She leaned forward and looked as if she would've been wagging her tail if she had one. "What do they need me for?"

Kameki raised a steaming cup of tea to his lips, they hadn't even noticed he'd made any. "Yes, do tell. She's not even close to their level of abilities you know, I doubt she'd be much use to them."

Koenma just smiled a little mysteriously while she threw a glare at her teacher. "True, though I'm impressed with your progress, your fighting skills could only be ranked C class at most." Her face fell, she'd been busting her ass off, it wasn't much fun to hear you still belonged in the lower classes. "Your shielding abilities however, are quite impressive. I think with some more training, we might be able to rank your defensive skills at a B." He nodded to himself, not noticing how she was becoming rather impatient with him.

"Yes, yes, I get it, I'm way out of their league. Why do they need me then though?"

His expression turned serious again and both ignored the sounds of Kameki slurping his tea. "They need female fighters."

She quirked a brow at this to which Koenma sighed, launching into his explanation of the situation. "To make a long story short, we've found that, in order to win the demon world tournament, Onigo has cheated. He's done this with the help of a device that can trap a demon's energy thus rendering them much weaker than their actual class. It appears several such devices exist and we have been putting our efforts into collecting and destroying them one by one over the past two years."

She nodded, wondering where the need for female fighters would come into play. "One turns out to be owned by a very powerful and sadistic demon named Koechi. He has decided to offer it up as a prize for whoever wins a tournament he will be hosting in a couple months. Undoubtedly he will use the device during this, rendering its fighters weaker than their actual selves. Not only that, but he has stipulated that any teams participating in his tournament must hold at least 2 males and 2 females.

Aside from that he has proclaimed each fight will be a two on two battle, rather than every demon for him or herself." Koenma sighed as he rubbed his temples. "You probably aren't aware of this, but demons don't do tag teams very well. They exist in a dog eat dog world, and fighting together as an actual team is quite challenging for them. Thus he's mostly making these rules to piss off his participants."

He looked her over, as if wondering if she'd fare any better when the need to work as a team arose. "So, they need me because they _must_ have 2 female fighters in their team?" Koenma nodded slowly. "Frankly we don't have that many female acquaintances who can fight. Genkai has passed on most of her power to Yusuke and, in her own words, is getting too old for this. Keiko, Shizuru and Botan, though never ones to back down wouldn't last a second. Yukina's abilities are impressive, but she's about as aggressive as a kitten. Kokou's mostly too drunk to be very reliable, Natsume's turned us down in favour of continuing to train with Chu for the next tournament. The only reason Mukuro agreed to join is because of Hiei."

He sighed deeply. "Which leaves one spot they still have to fill." She grinned, but then her face fell. "So that means the team would be the Reikai Tantei, Mukuro and me? Gosh, I'd really be the sad little duckling amongst that much power."

Koenma smiled encouragingly. "Don't underestimate yourself. Besides it took them 4 years and one hell of a lot of near death experiences to get to such power. And actually.." He grinned sheepishly. "Their team will be the Reikai Tantei, Mukuro and whoever wins their little arranged tournament to find the last female fighter."

She paled. "Wait what? I need to fight to get the position? Why don't you just tell them I'll help?" He shook his head. "No, it's better this way. If you can get through their tournament you'll get stronger and I'll know you can hold your own enough to handle this mission. Not to mention if we don't tell them you work for me, they'll still be suspicious of you and your motives."

She scrunched up her nose. "Why the hell would we want them to be suspicious of me?" Koenma rolled his eyes. "If our enemies think you have access to them, but aren't exactly friends with them. They _might_ try and approach you. Which could lead to a source of information we'd otherwise never get access to. In my opinion, it's worth the trouble of them distrusting you."

She resisted the urge to pout. Great, she was finally allowed to meet and potentially even fight alongside them. But the catch was, they'd only trust her as far as they could throw her. She crossed her arms. "Fine, where and when do I go?" Koenma smiled, she was a very nice change as detective from Yusuke. "You will be required to board a ship to the specified location." He grinned. "I believe you know it, as it was the same place where they joined up for their very first tournament as well."

She quirked a brow. "Hanging neck island? I thought the place was in rubble after the dark tournament?" He shrugged. "We've rebuilt it to an extent."

He turned to her, deadly serious once again. "Now they've been trying to keep this on the down low, as you can imagine they're quite famous in the Makai, them looking to find a female fighter will attract a lot of attention. Not just for the honour to fight and spar with them, but also for the prospect of perhaps snaring one of them as a mate."

She snorted. "Right, sooo be prepared for bitch fighting? This should be entertaining." He shook his head at her easy attitude. "You'll most likely be the only human among them, so be prepared to deal with a lot of crap."

He pushed off from the low table and stood up. "I will send you the date and coordinates of the ship's boarding on your communicator. I suggest you start packing. Also, you won't get many opportunities to do laundry once there, just so you know."

He gave her a stern look. "I suspect Genkai will realise who you are, I want you to communicate with her as little as possible, should she seek you out." She nodded as he left.  
Jack flopped down on the table from the lamp he'd been lounging in.

He lazily sighed out a tiny puff of smoke. "Finally, a proper challenge."


	4. Kurama's Test

Thank you guys so much for your reviews! 3  
I'm so happy people like the story so far.

Now as a pre-warning, I rated this story M and the next chapter contains a little bit of shizzle that probably deserves that rating.  
Soooo.. if you're of sensitive sensibilities.. I'm telling you now to continue reading at your own peril ^^

Again I do **NOT** own Yu Yu Hakusho, sadly ;)

* * *

She found out the boat ride, though seemingly short in the anime, actually took an entire day in reality.  
Though she'd seen it drawn many times, hanging neck island was actually much more ominous and impressive in person.

She'd already dumped her bags in her, actually rather nice, hotel room. She would've just eaten dinner and gone to bed, but all arrivals had been told to meet in the arena later that evening. So instead she took a shower, changed her clothes to a pair of shorts and a tank top, pulled her wet pink hair into a ponytail and headed back out with Jack slumped over her shoulder.

The little dragon was looking around at the tall demonesses they passed in the hallways. "This place is niiice." She noticed he was gaping at one with a particularly massive cleavage and rolled her eyes. "Perverted dragon." He grinned. "Jealous?"  
She snorted as she made her way outside, ignoring the curious and occasionally hostile gazes the female demons were throwing her way.  
"Of those heavy weights? It breaks my back just thinking of them."

They made their way towards the newly rebuilt arena at a leisurely pace. The stands in the arena were empty, but the floor itself was a beehive of activity.

"Wow, talk about too much oestrogen gathered in one place." Jack chuckled at her comment. "I'm not complaining."  
She raised a brow. "You will be when we start pulling each other's hair."

She grinned as she noticed the group standing in the middle on top of the fighting platform. None other than the Reikai Tantei, accompanied by Mukuro and Genkai were standing there, looking out over the crowd with sour expressions.  
She nearly laughed, obviously they hadn't managed to keep their little tournament as hush hush as they'd hoped.

She was ushered further into the crowd by other arrivals, and was no longer able to see beyond the tall demons she was now squished amongst. Jack sat up on her shoulder, his front paws clawing in her hair to prevent getting pushed off. "They don't seem very pleased with the turn out."  
She grinned. "Yeah, no shit. With this many women here, the fights will last till next year."

The crowd around her grew silent slowly and she realized something must be beginning, but being as short as she was she couldn't see a thing.

A soft sultry voice boomed out over the crowd, if she had to guess she reckoned it was Kurama.  
"Welcome! I would like to ask you all to step onto the platform one by one, your first test will commence immediately. I recommend you do so in an orderly fashion, any fights or trouble and you will be disqualified on the spot."

She grinned evilly at a demon beside her, who had seemed to be about to attempt attacking the wee human in the crowd, but thought better of it upon hearing Kurama's words.

It turned out their 'first test' didn't take very long. Each individual walked up to the platform only to leave it almost immediately after. She stood on tiptoe to try and catch a glimpse of what was going on, surely they weren't testing them for their energy with that paper trick of Genkai's? These were demons, they'd all pass.

Jack used his little bat wings to fly up slightly before landing back down on her shoulder. "He seems to be giving them something for them to put into their mouth. He's a plant master, maybe he's poisoning the weaker candidates."  
He snickered evilly as she blanched before she flicked his nose. "Of course he's not, why would he poison them? He could just disqualify those he deems too weak, apart from Kuwabara and Genkai all of them up there are S class, it's not like anyone's going to argue."

He was still rubbing his nose and glaring at her as they slowly moved closer to the stage. When finally the two heavy set demonesses in front of her began arguing about who should go first she rolled her eyes and pressed in between them, easily slipping past and climbing up on the circular battle floor.

She instantly felt not only six piercing gazes from the stage on her, but nearly the entire stadium seemed to gasp. "A human? What the hell's a human doing here?" She could hear whispers travelling around the stadium as though it was some kind of breeze. "How'd she even know about this tournament?" She decided to ignore them and walked up to the middle of the stage, where Kurama was waiting in front of the others. "She's going to be minced meat in the first round." She heard several snickers going through the crowd and resisted the urge to glare at them.

Instead she let her gaze travel over each of the six people in front of her, all giving her rather assessing stares. She grinned wickedly when she noticed the recognition in Hiei's eyes before quickly turning her head up towards the red head in front of her, thus avoiding the subsequently threatening glare Hiei cast her way.

Kurama was, in a word, beautiful. Long thick red hair, delicate features, piercing green eyes. She could see why many female demons came here in hopes of snaring a mate. He seemed to be speechless for a moment, obviously, none of them had expected a human among this crowd either.  
But then he gathered himself and lifted up a leaf from a bag he was holding. She held out her hand and took it, looking it over curiously. Jack nearly falling off her shoulder as he tried to sniff it.

"We require you to ingest the herb, the rest of the test shall continue tomorrow when it has been absorbed into your system." She quirked a brow, but shrugged and popped the leaf in her mouth. It tasted rather minty as she chewed it several times before swallowing. Kurama then gestured to the other end of the ring, indicating for her to leave. She threw one more grin at Hiei before hopping down onto the grass again, feeling them staring after her as she left the stadium.

* * *

She was surrounded by darkness, all she could see were the stars and the silhouetted foliage around her.

It felt like she was being watched, but she couldn't make out anyone in her surroundings.  
She turned around swiftly when she heard a low growl behind her, lazy padding steps like some animal was stalking her. Her heartbeat sped up, both in fear and in a strange kind of excitement. She took a step back, her eyes darting back and forth in every direction, trying to make out the animal that was hunting her.

She gasped when she noticed a pair of glowing red eyes, staring at her unblinkingly. Before she could turn and run, the animal leaped forward and pinned her to the ground with another growl. She looked up in fear, but couldn't make out what the heavy animal was in the darkness.

She looked down when she felt her skin tingle, her eyes widening when she noticed black purple flames licking away at her entire body.

But, it didn't feel painful, it felt.. nice, sensual. She looked back at the creature, only to see it morph and change in front of her, his claws now hands, his face now recognizable. She stared up at Hiei, his blood red eyes smouldering as his gaze travelled over her body, her clothes slowly disintegrating from his flames.

When he caught her gaze he smirked in victory, slowly leaning down he caught her lower lip between his teeth, growling lightly. When she didn't resist he pressed his body closer to hers and she arched up against him as he kissed her fully, moaning when his tongue met hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and roamed her fingers through his hair as she writhed and shuddered when she felt his hands begin exploring her body, his thumb slowly grazing her nipple, eliciting another moan from deep within her.

He kissed down her jaw and neck, pressing his hips against hers roughly to make her feel his arousal. "Hiei"

She closed her eyes as he continued exploring her, an agonizing desire slowly winding itself into a tight coil within her. When his mouth closed over one of her nipples she cried out, grasping his hair and bucking her hips up to him. He slid a hand down her side to her buttocks and pulled her tight against him, never stopping his administrations to her breast.

She was about ready to rip his clothes off him when he leaned forward and captured her lips in an all consuming kiss. She felt his hands leave her as he started fumbling with his belts, breaking off the kiss to quickly yank of his shirt and pants before leaning down and once again ravishing her already swollen mouth. He nudged her legs apart and groaned when she immediately wrapped them around him, she dragged her nails over his back, moaning his name against his lips.

She was so ready for this, she wanted him, she needed him. She felt his body tense in preparation as he readied himself to own her fully…

She gasped as she woke up, her heart beating at a million miles per second, her lower belly giving off an uncomfortable tightening that was demanding release. Sensing the obvious moisture between her thighs she groaned and let herself drop back on her pillow. "What the _hell_ was that…"

She squeezed her eyes tight for a moment before they flew open again, scanning her surroundings she noticed Jack was missing. She sighed in relief, the little demon was probably out catching his breakfast, she _really_ didn't need him sniffing out her scents right now.

Thanking whatever gods watched over her for that reprieve she quickly rolled over and hopped out of bed.

She set the shower as cold as it could go and forced herself under it with clenched teeth. After about five minutes she had goose bumps and her teeth were chattering but at least her boiling blood had once again settled. She grabbed a towel and stepped onto the bathroom floor as she wrapped herself in it.

Seriously, what the hell had that been about? Sexual frustration much? Hiei was hot, there's no denying that, but her imagination was taking it a bit far there. She shook her head as she felt herself picture it again. Nearly growling when she felt her body react to the unbidden thoughts.

When she entered her room again she noticed a slip of paper had been passed under the door. Taking a bite from an apple she grabbed off the table, she walked over and picked it up. It was official hotel stationary, a small envelope containing a simple letter. 'Your test will commence at 12:30, please report to the lobby fifteen minutes in advance.'

She frowned, wondering what kind of test it was. She looked up at the clock by the nightstand, it was 11. She grinned stupidly, finally sleeping in a decent bed again had obviously made her sleep a little _too_ good. She picked up the phone and ordered a decent meal to be delivered in half an hour. She quickly dragged on some comfortable pants, a top and sneakers. She scribbled a note for Jack to indicate she'd be back and grabbed her music player off the table before heading out, binding her hair up with an elastic as she walked down the hall.

A short while later she was jogging blissfully over the island, the salty wind pulling at her hair, music blaring in her ears. She ignored the female demons she passed, most granted her the same courtesy, though some couldn't resist throwing a few taunts her way or glaring at her as though she was an insect. She jumped off a cliff and swam for a while to stave off the midday heat, clambering back up at a rather steep area to work her muscles.

She was weaving her way through the woods when she noticed someone following her, she nearly rolled her eyes. Great, the tournament's not even started yet and someone's already looking for trouble, she really didn't want to give them a reason to disqualify her.

She pulled her music player from its protective cover and turned off the music before slowing her pace, she wasn't going to outrun them, their speed was too great. She had a better chance at reasoning with them that if they got into a fight, they'd both be tossed out.

Slowing her pace she leaned casually against a large boulder to wait for whoever or whatever was after her. She quirked a brow in surprise when a few feet in front of her a small, pink haired old lady suddenly blurred into focus. Funny how they were almost the same height, though Genkai's age had probably made her shorter than she had once been and Rei was therefore slightly taller.

The old woman looked her over curiously, her expression completely unreadable. Rei crossed her arms. "Can I help you?" Genkai smirked at her sarcastic tone. "That depends, who are you?" Rei raised her brows and snorted. "What do you care?"  
Genkai's eyes narrowed. "I think you know." Rei merely shrugged and turned to walk away. "Whatever old woman."  
She was about to plug her ears again with her music when Genkai called after her. "You're my sister's granddaughter, am I right?" Rei froze, she really sucked at acting, but Koenma had told her to avoid the subject. "I don't know what you're talking about old lady."

With that she set off running again and Genkai didn't bother to pursue.

* * *

She wasn't the only one in the lobby waiting for her turn and none who ventured out again seemed willing to talk about the so-called 'test'.  
Not that she was asking, but she noticed some of the other demons throwing hopeful glances.

At least it was safe to say the test didn't involve fighting. Jack had been grumbling about the waiting being too boring and had ventured back up to their room to take a nap, so much for his support.

A hotel clerk stepped out and they all looked up in anticipation. "12:30 appointment."  
That was her, she got up and followed the clerk, who looked remarkably like a kind of ogre, down a long hallway. At the end of which he slid open a door and motioned for her to go inside.

Once in, the door closed up behind her and she took in her surroundings. It appeared to be a tea room of sorts, the doors to the outside had been left open, giving the place a welcoming and sunny atmosphere. She noticed three of the Reikai Tantei were sitting on cushions on one side of a long low table, Mukuro and Genkai seemed to be missing, but in their stead she was surprised to see Keiko sitting beside Yusuke. Hiei was leaning casually against the wall a little further back.

She could practically feel his gaze burning into her, he was probably still aggravated about her escaping him, not to mention highly suspicious of who she was. But after her dream that morning she couldn't trust herself to look at him, she was sure her face would burn up like a ripe tomato.

"Please, have a seat."

Kurama indicated the lone cushion placed on the opposite end of the table, the set up looked remarkably like she was about to be interrogated.  
She sat down cross legged rather uneasily. Looking up when Kurama placed a steaming cup of tea in front of her she noticed Genkai entering the scene from the outside and observing them from the open doorway.

"Drink."

Her eyes flew back to Kurama's and seeing the look there she knew better than to argue. The tea was luke-warm anyway, so she gulped it down in three swallows. She sat the cup down again, wondering what was coming next.

After a minute or so Genkai stepped forward with a smirk, making her narrow her eyes at the old lady. "Are you my sister's granddaughter?"  
She opened her mouth to once again repeat she had no idea what she was talking about. "Yes."

Eyes growing wide in disbelief she slapped her hands in front of her mouth. What the fuck just happened?! Realizing it must have something to do with the friggin plant manipulator she tossed Kurama a glare while still keeping her hands clamped in front of her mouth. The fox merely smiled at her. "I'm afraid after drinking that particular tea you will be unable to speak a lie for the coming half hour, which is about the time it takes for your body to digest the substances."

She just continued glaring, whatever else she'd come up with, she sure as hell hadn't expected _this_. Yusuke just scratched his head. "Wow, so you're related to the old hag huh? No wonder you're such short stuff." She turned her glare to Yusuke, finally daring to slowly lower her hands again. Alright, so she couldn't speak a lie for thirty minutes, big deal, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut.

Though she figured the actual 'test' hadn't taken place yet. She turned back to Kurama when he spoke again. "Don't worry, we will not abuse the situation to pry into your personal life." She noticed his eyes flickered briefly in Hiei's direction, who undoubtedly wanted to take the opportunity to drill her.

"To pass this test, all you have to do is answer one simple request and, depending on your answer, we will decide if you are allowed to participate in this tournament or not."  
She nodded, curious what this all deciding question could possibly be.

"We require of you to describe for us the details of what you've dreamed the previous night."

If she'd been holding anything fragile, it would've shattered on the spot. Her eyes were about twice their normal size and her heart rate sped up radically. Surely they were joking?! What on earth could her dreams have to do with anything?! She swallowed nervously at their serious faces. Trying to regain control of herself before she turned into an embarrassed mess. "Excuse me? What would my dreaming have to do with anything?"

She nearly sighed in relief, she'd been afraid she'd automatically start yapping the truth, but apparently the concoction only did that when you were about to lie.

Kurama leaned forward. "Just answer."

She shook her head frantically. "No way." He squinted his eyes at her. "If you don't, then you will automatically be disqualified."

She blinked and paled. She wasn't seriously going to have to tell them this was she? Not only that, but he'd said he wanted _details_.  
She nearly groaned as she felt a blush rise up to her cheeks before shaking her head fervently again. "I really don't see what it has to do with this."

Kuwabara seemed to take pity on her. "Normally it wouldn't, but you remember the herb we made you take last night?" She nodded slowly. "It makes a person's greatest desire come forth, and it's shown in their dreams. This way, we can learn somewhat about your motivations and if you might be a liability to us. Like Kurama said, if you don't answer, we'll have to disqualify you."

Greatest desire? Greatest Desire?! Her eyes flamed as she looked at Kurama again. "No way! Your plant thingy was defective! There's NO WAY that's my greatest desire damn you!" Kurama seemed a bit taken aback at her severe reaction. "I assure you it works perfectly fine, sometimes you may not even be aware of what you truly desire, that's why we used this method to bring it forth."

She shook her head and continued glaring. "No way, it was defective!" He sighed. "Defective or not, we require your answer."

She flushed in embarrassment, looking them all over. She couldn't say this out loud, let alone to a whole group of people, among whom was the subject of her damned dream.

She swallowed nervously before biting her lip, stopping Kurama from speaking again she quickly replied. "Alright fine, but do I have to answer in front of _everyone_? Can't I just like, say it to one person and they can then vouch for me?"

Kurama started to protest, but Kuwabara, somehow sensing her distress, cut him off. "Come on guys, she's obviously embarrassed about something she dreamed. It shouldn't be such a big deal if only one of us hears it right?" Hiei snorted. "Such hassle over a stupid dream." She glared at him. He wouldn't be such a cool frog anymore if he knew exactly what that dream had been.

Kurama sighed, but gave in reluctantly. "Fine, who do you want to speak with?" Without hesitating she thrust out her arm and pointed directly at Keiko, who blinked in surprise. Yusuke immediately growled. "Hell no."

Rei fumed at him. "What? It's a girl thing ok, she'll understand. Not like I'm going out there to rip her head off, what load of good would that do me? You'd use my spine for a toothpick for god's sake. It would be rather pointless to enter this tournament and then go all 'hey let's kill Yusuke's girl, that should be fun'."

He just glared at her. "Besides, we can both trust her to be impartial in this."

Kurama frowned. "Keiko isn't fully aware of the criteria we require in these dreams, she may not be able to make the call and then you'd have to tell one of us anyway."

Rei crossed her arms impatiently. "Look, this whole dream business is some way for you guys to figure out if the participants are some kind of threat right? Trust me, my dream's not gonna show me as one. She'll be able to vouch for me, and I won't have to humiliate myself in front of everyone present, thank you very much."

Kurama threw a questioning look at Keiko, who smiled and stood up. "It's ok, I don't mind." She walked towards the terrace and hopped off onto the soft grass below, before turning back to the room. "Coming?" Rei quickly scrambled up and followed after her, leaving a fuming Yusuke behind.

* * *

They walked quite a distance away, making sure the demons couldn't pick up on their words, before Keiko turned around and waited patiently.

Rei immediately blushed like a schoolgirl. Damn, even saying this to just one person was hella embarrassing.

"Alright, so what was your dream?"

She grit her teeth. "Look, like I said, the damned thing was defective okay?" Keiko shrugged. "I'm just going to hear your dream, whether it was really your current deepest desire or not is no concern of mine. Now tell me already before the tea's effect runs out."

Rei turned even redder as she tried to force the words out. "Do I really have to give details?"

Keiko shrugged again. "The more details the more we can decipher about what might motivate you." She looked over the uneasy girl standing before her.  
"What makes you so sure it's defective anyway?"

Rei swallowed and closed her eyes before she practically hissed the words out.  
"Because jumping in the sack with Hiei is _definitely_ NOT my greatest desire damn it!"

Keiko blinked, seeming to take a while for the words to actually sink in, before she turned nearly the same colour as the short girl in front of her. "Oh…"  
Rei groaned. "You get it now? Damn this is so embarrassing."

Keiko blinked some more before a small grin spread on her face. "Oh my, no wonder you didn't want to say it in front of the guys." Rei slapped her forehead in annoyance. "I _told_ you, the damn herb was defective."

Completely ignoring her Keiko continued. "So, you're into Hiei huh? I realized many demons came here with an interest in one of them, but I didn't figure you'd be after one of them too." Rei's eyes widened in horror. "I'm _not_ here to seduce Hiei damn it! I already said the herb was faulty!"

Keiko's grin just widened. "Of course." Then she turned on her heel and began walking back to the hotel. Half panicked and still red from embarrassment Rei stumbled after her. They came back into the room, Keiko calmly taking her seat beside Yusuke again. Rei taking up her own seat with her head hanging in embarrassment. This sucked.

The guys looked from one to the other before Kurama cleared his throat. "Well?" Keiko grinned. "Oh, she's in the clear." Frowning, but accepting her answer nonetheless Kurama turned back to Rei. "Alright, you may go."

Gratefully, she got to her feet and walked out without a backwards glance.


	5. The Tournament

**Sooo Chapter 5!  
I'm having a bit of trouble with this tournament.. Don't want it lengthy and boring, but don't want it too rushed either.  
**  
 **Thanks to all those who reviewed! :D I reply to all, unless you've turned off pm's in which case I can't reply.  
RaziKit mentioned it's a little tough sometimes to tell who says what, so I'll try to work on that!  
If it's still not clear let me know ^^**

 **And again just to be sure: ~ I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho ~**

* * *

After the first test a good third of the participants had been eliminated. However, this still left far too many to be able to get a single victor in decent time.  
Thus pools of twenty were made, much like the beginnings of the Makai tournament, they'd battle it out at the same time.  
Last one standing gained her ticket into the one on one fights.

Each group was given free range of the entire arena floor, rather than just the ring. Their ever present judges watching from the stands, along with whoever felt like observing the fights. Rei groaned as she leaned over a balustrade halfway up the stadium, watching the bloody proceedings below.

"This sucks."

Jack grinned at her from his perch on the metal railing. "Scared are we?"

She scoffed at him. "No, just annoyed. I'm the only human in the bunch, there's no way my damned pool isn't going to gang up on me."

Jack turned serious and looked back down at the fighters. "Most of them don't even have such high energy signatures. They probably won't even be able to touch you."

She sighed and leaned her head against the cool metal. Her shields had improved greatly, she supposed her abilities were somewhat like Ruka's and back during the dark tournament not even Hiei could break through her force field. "Yeah, but I only have so much endurance. Once I drop my guard I'm roasted, I can't take on nineteen demons at once damn it."

Jack grinned again. "So? Restrain eighteen of them and kill them one by one."

She snorted at his optimism, not like she intended to kill anyone anyway. She'd never killed a living being deliberately in all her two lives, not counting mosquitoes.  
"You know as well as I that my shield projection still sucks, I got lucky with Hiei that time."

The dragon puffed out a whiff of smoke. "So? Maybe you'll get lucky again. Nothing like a bit of duress to bring out the best in you."

She grinned and kissed his little snout, making him recoil with an expression that mirrored disgust, though his tiny scales seemed to take on the most adorable red hue. "Thanks Jackie." He grumbled a bit before turning his attention back to the fighting below. She sighed. "I suppose I'd better go warm up, this fight won't last much longer."

In preparation for the fight she'd already braided her long hair and was wearing one of the outfits Kameki had given her upon departure. He'd told her it was for luck, it was a Chinese style short dress, all black with golden lining. The splits on the sides made sure she'd be able to move unhindered. The soft black leather ballerina shoes were so comfortable she felt like she was walking on air. She'd never really worn anything this fancy and if she was to take a guess, she'd bet it was made of silk.  
But Kameki wouldn't take no for an answer and insisted that she wear it to her fights, even if it would get damaged or destroyed. Somehow, she had a feeling he'd know if she refused his request.

Half an hour later, her pool was called to the arena through the loud speakers surrounding the stadium. She hadn't really been nervous before, but she had to admit that she was starting to freak a little as she walked into the arena and noticed the blood patterns against the walls and grass from up close.  
This shit just got real..

She had no doubt most of these demons would just love severing her head from her body and use it as a beach ball.  
She took a deep breath. _Focus, you can do this, you have to. Besides, you've been dead before, it isn't really anything to be scared of.  
_  
As the last of her group entered, the gates closed behind them, leaving no room for retreat.  
She looked up at the stands, noticing Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Genkai and Mukuro looking down at this next ensemble. She could almost swear they were looking at her, but from this distance, it could just be her imagination.

Kuwabara's voice boomed down at them, as it had at each previous group before the start of their fight. "Okay guys, anything goes. Surrendering is accepted as forfeiting your place. Last one standing gets through, you all got that?" There was a low murmer of agreement as the fighters each jumped back to gain a better fighting position.

"Ready? Go!"

Despite the prompt to get started, nobody moved.  
Instead all eyes seemed to swerve in her direction maliciously, making her grit her teeth and keep her fighting stance firm.  
"Great, let's all gang up on the little human why don't cha."

Not having heard her muttering, a tall fishlike creature stepped in her direction, grinning and showing off a set of razor sharp teeth. To be sure she wouldn't get caught off guard, Rei swerved out her energy, making sure she felt the position of each fighter. Then she took a deep breath to calm herself.  
As long as she remained calm her somewhat precognitive abilities would show her what would come. It was one of the reasons why she wasn't throwing a panicked fit yet.

"Let's just get rid of the out of place elements first shall we? You understand human, it's nothing personal, but you should've known better than to mess with demons!" As the sound of her screechy voice rose several octaves towards the end of her little rant, the demon jumped into the air, the others looking on as they seemed to believe the human would be done in quickly.

Compared to Kameki however, this fish thing was ridiculously slow. Rei nearly laughed in relief.  
Before the demon's blow could land, Rei moved, manoeuvred behind the creature in about a millisecond and kicked her hard in the back of her neck. She went down in a loud crash, dragging a deep hole into the ground and not even twitching once she came to a stop.

Rei landed softly and turned around taking up her stance again, while glaring at the others. Several hisses and growls could be heard around the arena, and the other eighteen started advancing on her all at once. To her utter surprise, all of them were slow to her. Combined with her half developed ability to see their movements before they even performed them and she actually felt pretty sure of herself.

She hopped and twisted through the demonic bodies, making their hits and kicks hit just about everything and everyone but her. Some carried weapons, but those only seemed to make them even more sluggish. She supposed having trained with Kameki and her little run ins with the border patrol had improved her far more than she'd realized.

She just hadn't been aware of it because Kameki had yet to use his full powers on her, and so every time she improved, he made things harder.  
Making it seem as though she hadn't actually improved at all.

It was almost funny how the demons' clumsiness was doing all the work for her. Getting annoyed and frustrated with each other, they turned on one another for having received a hit. Soon the whole arena had become fighting mayhem.

A very hairy creature seemed to take it in its head to attack her from behind, but before she had a chance to land her weapon, Rei kicked her hard in the stomach, making the ape fly back and into the wall with a loud crack. She immediately dodged another assault, so far she hadn't even needed to use her shields yet.

* * *

Genkai smirked down at the fight below, Yusuke grinning beside her. "Damn grandma, I can see you're related."  
He turned to her with a questioning look. "How come you didn't make her your apprentice?"

Genkai shrugged. "I never knew she took an interest in fighting. To be honest I'm surprised she never sought me out." She looked down at the small fighter below them. She was moving fast, dodging attacks and using her opponents' tempers against them. She really wasn't half bad, if she won their tournament she might make a good addition to the team. The girl would definitely benefit from the training they could offer her.

Hiei, Kurama and Mukuro just watched on stoically, but Kuwabara seemed to try to contain himself to start rooting for the girl.

"Hey guys, what's up?"

They all turned to find Keiko walking up to them. Yusuke obviously wasn't pleased. "The _hell_ Keiko, you can't just walk around this place alone! We told you, you shouldn't be present when there are this many demons gathered at once damn you."

Keiko shrugged. "I heard that human girl was fighting, I was curious how she's doing."

Yusuke continued glaring at her, but Kuwabara just pointed down to the arena below enthusiastically. "See for yourself, she's kicking ass."

Keiko leaned forward and took in the sight of a load of groaning and unconscious bodies, a black and pink blur moving around among them. "Hm, I wonder what made her enter your tournament. I mean, you're all quite famous in the demon world and all… But how did a human know about you guys?"

Yusuke turned serious again as he looked back down at the fighting. "Yeah, that's what we'd like to know."

She turned her head to Yusuke and smiled. "I could go talk to her? She doesn't seem all that bad, she might loosen up a bit if she made a friend."

Kurama shook his head, but continued looking at the now nearly finished fight. "No Keiko, with this many demons around, Yusuke's right, you're too vulnerable. If you start showing favouritism to one of the contestants, there's no knowing what might happen."

Keiko sighed and leaned her chin into her palm. "Okay."

* * *

As the last fighter finally buckled and fell into a cloud of dust Rei looked around. Damn, this had been remarkably easy. She screeched slightly when Jack suddenly landed rather inelegantly on top of her head, his sharp little claws scratching her scalp. "That was awesome witch. I think you even impressed the S classes up there."

At that she looked up at her audience, Kuwabara was grinning widely as he raised his arm. "And we have a winner!"

She grinned back at his enthusiasm. Seemed she'd gained a fan today.

Kurama then took over in his softly seductive voice. "Please report to the lobby to officially register your name as a contestant in the fights." She bowed slightly, as she would've done to Kameki, before making her way out of the arena at a casual stroll.

* * *

Around fifty participants were left after the initial carnage, they were set up into individual matches. The winners of which would obviously move on to the next round until eventually there was a single victor. She went to watch every day, making sure to note fighting styles and strategies her potential future opponents were using.

She noticed she wasn't the only one coming to the arena to watch, though it appeared many of the demons came to watch the judges rather than the fights.

She'd had to smirk when one particularly bold female tried to make a pass at Yusuke, only to receive one hell of a slap from Keiko who was glaring daggers at the demoness. She'd always thought it a bit exaggerated that a human girl could actually slap the mighty Yusuke so badly, but apparently her slaps really did pack a punch, as the demoness slinked off holding her hand against her cheek.

Her first match would be the next day, so for now she was wearing her shorts and a comfortable tank top, her long straight hair blowing gently in the breeze as she hadn't bothered to tie it. Jack was once again sitting on the balustrade next to her. "This one could be a dangerous opponent, she seems to be able to create vacuums of some sort."

Rei nodded as she strained her eyes to follow the swift movements below. The purple skinned one barely managed to escape suffocating to death it seemed.  
She doubted shields were very effective against something like this, yet some sick part of her was actually getting excited at the prospect of _real_ fights. She supposed her demon blood revelled in the potential carnage and the adrenaline that would inevitably course through her veins as she was dancing with death.

To be honest she'd been surprised at how little it had reared its head so far, she'd expected something like exorcist material, but in all truth her demon side had remained perfectly dormant. Perhaps if she managed to unleash it, she might gain some better offensive abilities. She sighed. She'd really hoped she'd get some kick ass abilities coming to this world, like Yusuke's spirit gun or something, but nooo _her_ spirit energy was solely defensive. Not that that can't be useful, but so far she could only cast it around herself.  
So hey, if the apocalypse came, she'd live! downside: everyone else would kick the bucket.

As the fight ended she turned to go, making Jack look at her in question. "Where are you off to?"

She looked at him over her shoulder. "Thirsty, you want anything?"

The dragon snorted. "You'd think we're at the movies or something."  
She just shrugged and made her way back inside the surrounding area of the large stadium.  
She'd seen a vending machine earlier, funny how even demons appeared to use such contraptions.

It took her a couple turns to find it again, stopping in front of it she noticed a ton of items she didn't recognize. "So much for a regular soda."

She turned as she heard noises coming from down the hall, snickering voices and a banging sound. She walked closer to it, deciphering what was happening from what they were saying. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" They snickered again, before she heard the distinct sound of someone being slammed against the wall, followed by a slight mewl. Rounding a corner, she saw three tall demons sneering down at a slender girl that looked somewhat like a cat, who was hissing at them.  
"You got no place in this tournament kitty, how the hell you survived the first round is a mystery of itself. You're not fit to even be seen by Kurama or Hiei. The only one lowlier than you is that pathetic human trying to vie for their attention."

Rei snorted, making all four of them turn and stare at her. "I resent that you know, human I may be but it really is a low blow to be called pathetic by someone who proves their own worth by ganging up on a person."

Suddenly the bullies' attention was fully on her, their smirks widening. "You know, humans are so fragile, it'd be such a shame if you had an accident and could no longer participate."

Rei took on a fighting stance. "Just try it bimbo."

A throat was cleared behind them. "Is there a problem?"  
Recognizing the sultry voice immediately Rei dropped her stance as though she'd been caught red handed raiding the fridge.

The other three demons melted their harsh expressions into painfully sweet ones and turned their attention to a certain redhead. Rei just rolled her eyes and walked over to the cat demon, extending her hand to help her up. The cat hissed at her and slapped the hand away. "I don't need help, _human_."  
She spat the word as though it was an infectious disease, before quickly getting to her feet and darting off.

"Right, nice to meet you too." Rei shook her head and turned to the seduction in progress.

Kurama showed less than zero interest in any of the women, but that didn't seem to stop them from swinging their hips as they walked by him after having said their hellos in seductive voices. Always the ladies man it appeared, but hey, he was a fox after all and compared to her meagre height he was annoyingly tall. She gave him a friendly smile, not wanting to spazz out like some deranged fan girl.

"Hello Kurama, nice timing you had there."

She moved to walk back to the vending machine she'd left earlier, only to be slightly surprised when he fell into step beside her. When he stopped with her upon reaching the vending machine she quirked a brow at him. "Can I help you?"

His face was remarkably unreadable. "Perhaps."

She rolled her eyes and set her hands on her hips. "Okay, so dish."

A quick smile flickered across his lips at her impatience. "You seem to know us pretty well."

She huffed and turned to the vending machine, looking over the strange drinks. "Yeah, like that's exceptional around here."

He pointed out a yellowish can. "That resembles a kind of iced tea."

She tossed in a few coins and pushed the corresponding buttons. "Thanks, now why don't you tell me what's really on your mind mister cryptic."  
She opened the can and took a few sips, it tasted quite refreshing.

"Not many humans know of us, I'm curious."

She shrugged. "Not many doesn't mean none." She gestured at herself. "Obviously."

He squinted his eyes at her avoidance of his true question.

She merely smirked. "Gets under your skin doesn't it? Not knowing. Don't worry fox, I may know a lot about you guys, but you're still one heck of a lot stronger than I am. Honestly, what kind of threat could I pose to you huh? Relax."

He didn't ease up one bit, still clearly holding her under suspicion. "It's not you I'm worried about, rather where or from whom you got your information."

She knew Koenma had implicitly forbidden her from mentioning her connection to him, but he'd never said anything about her having to lie. Besides, no matter what she said, Kurama of all people, would still be wary of her anyway. "Hm, well for one thing, my sensei's a demon."  
She shrugged, it wasn't a lie. Not that she'd actually gotten any information about them from him, but hey, Kurama didn't need to know that.

Kurama did seem a little taken aback at this. "Care to tell me his name?"

She quirked a brow again. "I don't see how that's important."

He threw her a slightly menacing look, obviously her desire to keep her teacher a secret didn't exactly come across as trustworthy. But she wasn't sure if Kameki would be linkable to Koenma, and if they figured out her connection to him she was pretty sure the ruler of the Reikai would have her filleted.

She grinned evilly at him. "Sooo, I bet you guys don't even care so much about the human thing, you're just suspicious of me cause I had some fun with the Makai border patrol the last couple of weeks right?" She sipped her drink again, throwing him a look as though daring him to deny it.

"That does peak our interest yes. Normal humans don't tend to enjoy taking trips to the Makai and running around with demons on their tail."

She snickered somewhat. "Well I'm not exactly what you'd call _normal_."

Kurama actually smiled slightly at that. "So I've seen, and related to Genkai no less."

She nodded and shrugged again. "Yeah well, not like we even know each other." She sighed. "Anyway, I should head back, gotta check out the competition and all that."

She walked past him but turned when he spoke again.

"Why did you enter this competition?"

She gave him a secretive little smile. "Hey, a lady's gotta have her mystery right? Besides, if I win this, I'm sure you'll find out. And if I don't..." She shrugged with a single shoulder. "Well then it's hardly important anymore now is it?" With that she turned and walked away.

* * *

Her first match went off pretty much without a hitch, the grotesque female demon she faced relied mostly on her brute strength. The demon's speed had forced Rei to use her shielding abilities, but combined with the ability to foresee attacks, her opponent couldn't hurt her.

It did however, take her nearly three hours to bring the heavy set woman down.  
Having no other attacks but her fists and kicks and the demon having the hide of a freaking rhino, made the match go on forever. Needless to say, by the end of it, she may have been unhurt, but she was exhausted from the extreme work out.

During the second match she faced off against an opponent who relied on making doubles of herself around the ring, but once again her sixth sense in knowing from where and when an attack was going to come, saved her butt from getting any injuries. Though her endurance was severely tested as she took forever to figure out which clone was the real one to knock out.

It wasn't too strange then, that by the third round her matches were planned to take place early in the morning, taking into account the fact that they took an insane amount of time. She couldn't say she was very flattered at the fact, obviously she was a slowpoke.

Early morning dew still hung in the air and attached itself to the occasional patch of grass as she entered the arena for her third fight, muttering in annoyance at the fact that they'd scheduled this fight earlier than was usual just to accommodate her.

Her opponent was stretching and yawning quite deliberately as she clambered up on the ring. This demoness was tall and somewhat gangly.  
She didn't have much muscle to speak of, but Rei had watched the demon's previous fights and she didn't appear to rely on muscular strength.

Her best bet was to keep the fighting constantly close ranged since this demoness excelled in long range attacking. She wasn't exactly sure what it was the demon did, which could end up being quite a disadvantage, but she was pretty certain she'd have the advantage once she got in striking range.

Genkai yelled down at them with her scratchy voice. "Once again: first to either forfeit, stay down or out of the ring for more than 10 seconds is the loser. BEGIN!"

As soon as the ok had been given, Rei darted forward aiming a mock blow at the demon's head while preparing to kick her as hard as possible in her side. Before she even reached her however, the demon simply smirked, and suddenly Rei found herself being lifted off the ground. She screeched and reached forward trying to grab on to something, but the slick stones of the battle ring didn't give her any hold and she was raised further and further up into the air.

"What the _hell_! Put me down damn you! What is this?! Making me fly doesn't count as being out of the ring you gnat."

The demoness only smirked wider. "Indeed, I have no intention of keeping you up there." Rei's eyes widened as she was lifted ever higher into the air.  
Great, she was going to be dropped down to fall to her death.

As _if_...

Once she was raised well above the stadium the demon's power suddenly pulled away, Rei formed her shield while falling to the ground. She heard a sharp intake of breath coming from the stands and flickered a smile at Keiko's shocked expression before she bounced back off the ring. Grinning widely she turned to face the demon as the bounces from her flexible shield slowly diminished.

"Can we fight now?"

The demon looked momentarily stunned and then frowned angrily. Suddenly, a massive weight pushed on Rei's body and she was forced to her knees. Setting her hands beneath her she tried to stay upright, but the once again grinning demoness walked closer and the pressure only increased. Slowly her legs and arms buckled and she was forced flat on her stomach, she breathed heavily and created her pink shield trying to hold off some of the pressure, it seemed to have barely any effect.

She gnashed her teeth. "Damn it, what is this shit?"

The demon just laughed coming to a stop next to her to start gloating. "I would've preferred to kill you human, but this will have to do. If you can withstand my gravity for 10 seconds I will claim my victory and you will be allowed to live." She crouched next to her and grinned into Rei's pained face. "Isn't that generous of me?"  
Then she laughed, her eyes closing in mirth as she threw her head back. "That is, of course, if you don't flatten to death first."

Rei could hear the board's counting through the buzzing in her ears. The harsh, electronic voice echoing through the stadium. "SEVEN!" Damn it, this really wasn't going well. "EIGHT!" The demon was still laughing, not paying attention to her victim.

Using every ounce of her remaining strength Rei lashed out with her leg and pulled the demon's feet out from under her. She cried out in pain from the strain while the demon cried out in surprise, falling to her back. Immediately the gravity lifted and, not wanting to allow the demon another chance, Rei got up and slammed the demon into the ground with her fist, the stone slabs beneath her cracking from the impact.

Rei still breathed heavily while she looked down at the now unconscious demon. At least her opponent had relied so heavily on her powers, she obviously didn't know how to take a proper hit. She groaned as she forced herself upright. Looking up to the stands as she was declared the winner of the match.

Next up would be the semi finals, only two more wins and she was in...


	6. To the Victor go the Spoils

*Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep*  
She groaned as she rolled over and whacked the alarm clock into silence with a loud *thunk*. By the pale light peeking in through the curtains she could tell it was still barely sunrise. She wanted nothing more than to just roll over, curl up into a ball and continue sleeping.

"If you don't get up I swear I'll set your sheets on fire witch, you're not missing the damned match."

She turned her head back over to the nightstand and grinned guiltily at Jack's squinted orange eyes. She started muttering in a husky sleep filled voice as she untangled her legs from the sheets and got out of bed. She stretched once she stood upright and yawned loudly. "Fine, fine, feel like making me breakfast?"

He snorted and hopped off the nightstand. "Sure, if you feel like burnt bacon."

She 'tssk'd' at him but then shrugged and dragged herself over to the bathroom. She removed her sleeping shorts and top and frowned at the bruises she saw in her reflexion. That damned demon hadn't been kidding when she'd said she might get flattened to death.

Now that they were down to the last few matches she had to fight daily, this was going to be 'fun'.  
She rolled her shoulder slightly and winced. Yep, definitely going to be fun.

At least Kameki liked to give her 'new' bruises during training, her opponents here were undoubtedly going to aim for the existing ones to cause more pain. She groaned slightly as she entered the shower.

"Well, no pain no gain."

* * *

An hour later she found herself calmly doing stretches on the arena ring once more.

The woman before her was a vision, even she had to admit this tall slender lady was an absolute babe.  
If this tournament didn't work out for her, she could always join a modelling agency.

When the call for the match beginning was given, Rei took up her fighting stance.

But when her opponent opened her mouth and started singing, she was taken aback and hesitated. As far as she'd seen in the first few rounds this demoness relied on speed and using certain pressure points on the body to render her opponent incapacitated. So then, why was she singing?

She noticed an evil kind of smile forming on the demon's beautiful cupid bow lips as Rei slowly eased out of her stance and every muscle in her body relaxed, a dreamy kind of expression coming over her features. What was happening?

"Witch snap out of it! She's hypnotizing you!"

She vaguely noticed Jack looking down at her from the stands closest to the ring, smoke rising up from his nostrils in his frustration. But it was too late, the demon had her under control and attacked her full force, landing several blows in her stomach, her face and finally knocking her down on the ground with a double handed blow to the back.

Rei coughed up some blood and tried to push herself off the ground, but the demoness pushed her knee between her shoulder blades and forced her back down. She grabbed Rei's braid harshly and yanked her head back before placing razor sharp nails at her exposed neck. The demon leaned closer to hiss in her ear. "So much for your annoying shields little human, I will take great pleasure in spilling your life's blood."

The demon made to slice her neck open, only to be surprised to find it shielded with a miniature protection shield. Rei grabbed the demon's pinkie finger and yanked it outwards making the demon shriek in pain as they both rolled over on the floor. Pushing off and away from the demon, Rei once again took her fighting stance, the beauty looking at her with a hate filled glare.

"You didn't truly think I couldn't adjust the size of my shields did you? I'm not _that_ much of an amateur."

The demon huffed. "A mistake I won't be repeating."

Rei's eyes widened when she noticed the demon was about to sing again. Not wanting to give her the chance she charged headlong into battle. Throwing punches and kicking to keep her from starting that damned hypnotizing song of hers. She shielded every incoming attack, preventing any more damage being done to herself, but the demoness was pretty good at blocking, leaving them both breathing heavily after about an hour of continued sparring. Both were unable to land definitive blows and the demon growled as they finally broke apart and stood a distance from each other.

"I didn't want to use this until the finals, consider yourself lucky I'd honour you with this attack dirty human."

Rei sneered. "Yeah, yeah, get on with it."

She was still breathing heavily as the demon placed her hands together and started chanting. Unsure of the wisdom in letting the demon sing again, Rei plugged her ears with her fingers. When the chant finished, water started rising around Rei's feet. She pulled her hands away from her face as she looked down in astonishment. "What the hell?"

The demon smirked. "You see little human, I am a siren. Not only is my voice hypnotizing, am I more beautiful than men's wildest dreams…"

Rei grumbled as she stared at the ever rising water. "Yeah, not to mention modest.."

The demon pretended she didn't hear. "But I am also in control of all waters."

Rei rolled her eyes. "Joy, good thing I passed my swimming certificate in kindergarten."

The demon merely squinted her eyes at her as the bubble of water now raised up to Rei's chest. "Mock while you can human, your frail little body won't live long without oxygen." Rei's heart rate increased as the water reached her neck. She created a small shield around her head but sucked in her breath automatically as the water bubble finally closed over her mouth, nose and then the top of her head.

She closed her eyes. _'Don't panic, don't panic. Your face doesn't feel wet, you should be able to breathe in your little shield.'_ No longer able to hold her breath she let it escape before filling her lungs again, nearly sighing in relief when she found that the water indeed could not penetrate her shield. Slowly opening her eyes she saw a blurry vision of the outside world through the haze of water surrounding her.

She felt like she was floating, moving her arms and legs she tried to swim to the 'surface' but she found she couldn't move from her spot. The water bubble held her like she was stuck in some kind of gel. She tried punching her way out, but with the water being flexible, it did her no good. She knew she had to find a way out, her little oxygen bubble wouldn't remain filled with the gas indefinitely as she slowly converted it into carbon-dioxide.

She grinned as an idea came to mind. The water couldn't penetrate her shield, meaning if she expanded it, she could force the bubble off of her. It was at least worth a shot. Closing her eyes she focussed again.

* * *

"Oh, my god! Someone call the match damn it, she'll drown!" Keiko looked on in horror at the floating figure inside the water orb. The demon at the opposite end of the ring laughing cruelly.

Kuwabara made to move forward, ready to shout out the end of the match with a worried look on his face.

"No."

Both turned to Genkai, who kept her eyes trained on the bubble below. "It's not over yet."

Just as they were about to argue the bubble below engorged. It kept growing, and growing until the water stretched thin over a large sphere shape, now nearly covering the entire ring and forcing the appalled demon to walk backwards. The demoness looked on in horror as the sphere expanded and pushed her to the limit of the ring.

* * *

"God damn it." Rei narrowed her eyes in concentration.

She'd forced her shield out to the point that it stretched the entire ring, the pretty demon balancing precariously on the edge with a slightly panicked expression before she fell off and landed on the grass outside it.

The stupid water remained encircled around the shield, it refused to dissipate and she had a feeling it'd come rushing back in if she made her shield smaller again.  
She breathed in deeply, perhaps the best way to deal with this was dropping the shield all at once. Water was flexible, but it couldn't suddenly reel back in if the support it was leaning on was suddenly broken away. Then again, if she was wrong she could well suffocate to death.

She rolled her eyes, she couldn't keep this up indefinitely. Taking another deep shuddering breath, she retracted her energy and dropped the shield. To her everlasting relief the water dropped down and fell to the floor in a giant splash, soaking both contestants. Not that most of her hadn't been soaked already.

She swiped her wet bangs out of her face as the demoness squealed in anger. "You bitch!"

Rei grinned through the water still dripping down her face at the pretty demoness now sporting a distinctive 'drowned cat' look. She couldn't help but snicker at the outraged gaze the demon was giving her before she finally clambered back up in the ring.

"Winner: Rei!"

The demon twisted around to glare up at their judges. "WHAT? I'm not defeated yet you old hag!"

Genkai smirked down at the irate demon. "I'm afraid you are, you stayed out of the ring for longer than ten seconds. Which, as you know, is against the rules." Both contestants blinked and stared up at the board which was indeed flashing an obvious "0", neither had heard the mechanic voice yelling out the countdown.

"NO!" The demon let out a furious growl and turned to face Rei. "You stupid human! You have no right to defeat ME!" She lunged forward in her rage, but Rei quickly jumped up and slammed her face first into the ground.

"Never attack in anger, stupid."

* * *

Rei sighed in relief as she let herself slowly sink down into the steaming bath water. Her sore muscles and bruises nearly shuddering from the sudden relaxation.

"AAhhhh, that feels great." She lifted up some foam and blew the bubbles out of her hands before dipping her head under the water and soaking her hair up to the roots.

"You'd think you'd be a little more anxious around water after your experience today."

She came up out of the water with a gasp, slicking her wet hair back with her hands while blinking droplets out of her eyes. "Sorry what was that?"

She threw Jack a questioning look, but he merely rolled his eyes. "Honestly witch, gain some modesty. Normal women would've screamed their head off if a male entered the bathroom while they were bathing."

Rei looked down at the frothiness covering her body and shrugged. "Not like you can see anything anyway."

Jack just muttered as he sat down on the sink. "Not like you'd have cared if I could anyway."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "We're partners, I'm comfortable around you. Take it as a compliment."

He grumbled as he laid his head on his paws. "Joy…"

He lazily flicked his tail around for a while as she shampooed her hair. "So, have you thought of a strategy how to take on your final opponent?"

She groaned as she sank lower into the bath, letting her hair fan out in the water and slowly massaging her scalp to remove the soap.  
"Not really, it's not like I can be sure if my shields will work against her or not. If they do, I might stand a decent chance. If they don't.." She hesitated. "Well I'll make sure to mention you in my will."

They both looked up when they heard a knocking at the door to the main room. Jack huffed. "I'll get it."  
He flopped down to the ground and walked out of the bathroom on all fours. She'd learned early on that, despite his wings, the dragon wasn't much of a flyer.

A second later she heard the door open followed by a moment of hesitancy. Curious at the sudden quiet, Rei called out. "Who is it Jackie?"

She heard an annoyed growl. "Stop giving me pet names witch and you might want to come out here, we have company."

She grumbled a bit as she clambered out of her bath, soaking the tile floor while she was at it, and grabbed a large towel before wrapping it around her body. She didn't care about the wet trail she left behind as she made her way out of the bathroom. "What's so important that it can't wait?"

She looked up with an annoyed expression before dropping her jaw a few inches when she saw her visitors: none other than her six judges and a very happily smiling Keiko were sitting on the two couches around the low table. Jack rolled his eyes and made a movement suspiciously similar to a face palm.

"For goodness sake woman gain some modesty! Get dressed before coming out here!" She jumped when he spewed a flame at her and hurried back into the bathroom.

"Fine, fine! Stupid prudish dragon." She quickly dried off properly, yanked a comb through her hair and dragged on her underwear, sweatpants and top she'd laid out for when she came out of the bath. Coming back out, she scowled at Jack before flopping down on the small leather seat meant for propping up your feet.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

It was Genkai who spoke, a stern expression on her face. "Having made it to the finals, we're here to congratulate you. And discuss a few things, should you win the final match."

Rei quirked a brow at her 'almost' grandmother. "Really? Wouldn't that be seen as favouritism? I didn't know you guys were rooting for me so much, how sweet."

The old woman rolled her eyes. "Don't get cocky kid, we've already visited your opponent for the same reason."

Keiko leaned forward a bit, still smiling. "I hope you win though."

Rei tossed her a grin. "Thanks."

Genkai flashed Keiko a look but she merely shrugged. "What? I know Kuwabara does too. Besides, it'd be nice to have another human on the team."

Kuwabara scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Hey I'm supposed to be an impartial judge here Keiko."

Keiko huffed. "Well who wants that freak of a demon to win anyway? She can't be trusted, the only reason she'd join is because she's strong, we have no idea if she'd turn on us later."

Kurama gave the female a slightly scolding gaze. "We don't know if we can truly trust either of them Keiko."  
He looked over at Rei for a second as though apologizing for talking about her with her in the room, to which Rei lifted her hands in a gesture of not really caring, before he turned back to Keiko. "Just because someone's a demon doesn't mean they're evil, nor does being a human mean they're good. You of all people should know this."

He smiled as he indicated around the room. "Most of your close relations tend to be demons after all."

Keiko looked a little embarrassed at this. "Yeah but, she just gives me the creeps is all."  
She turned to Rei then and suddenly thrust out her hand, which Rei just stared at while blinking in confusion.

"I'm Keiko by the way, I realised we never formally introduced ourselves. Though I guess you know the guys."

Rei grinned before pointing at each of them. "Genkai, Yusuke, Hiei, Kurama, Mukuro, Kuwabara."She smiled before taking Keiko's outstretched hand. "And Yukimura Keiko. I'm good on names thanks. Guess you know mine by now."

Keiko just stared at her stupidly while her hand was shaken and let go of. Yusuke let loose a growl. "How do you know her name?"

Rei grinned evilly at him before shrugging and feigning ignorance. "She just introduced herself didn't she?"  
He narrowed his eyes, seeming to be barely restraining himself from lunging at her. She grinned even wider over his protectiveness, gosh it was fun to make these guys suspicious of her. Like dangling a treat on a hook in front of their faces.

"Her last name." He growled deep in his throat, a sound any normal person would undoubtedly back away from. But Rei somehow found it all the more amusing, perhaps her demon side had more influence over her than she thought after all.

She lifted a finger to her chin and looked up in mock surprise. "Oh yeah, I wonder why I know that."

Yusuke cracked his knuckles as he formed them into a fist, while Rei just kept grinning evilly at his glare. "Damn, you're so easy to rile up Yusuke _Urameshii_. Did you honestly think the competitors in this little tournament of yours would know nothing about you?"  
She turned to Keiko with a smile. "I'd love to try the ramen at your place once by the way, I've heard it's very good."

Keiko looked a little taken aback and blushed, not sure what to say as she looked between her irate fiancée and the, more than obviously enjoying herself, human mystery girl.

The others just watched the spectacle with interest. Kurama leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Though it is true that the competitors here knew about us and our reputation, it does raise suspicion that you seem to know more beyond that. Being as known as we are, we try to keep our private lives.." He smiled a dangerous little half smile. "Well, private. Especially the part of our lives involving human world. Yet you seem to know much..."

Rei just shrugged. "Yeah I figure. But despite being such a logical analyst, even you have your instincts Kurama." She smiled sweetly at him. "Do they really tell you I'm a threat?" He narrowed his eyes, but didn't answer her.

Hiei scoffed as he folded his arms over his chest, one foot propped up against the table. "Can we get to the point?"

Rei looked at his nonchalant position on the couch and felt a blush coming up as she took in his leanly muscled appearance. She ground her teeth and looked away, blast that stupid dream anyway. She was relieved she hadn't had a repeat of the experience, though she still vehemently denied that particular dream having been the result of the stupid 'deepest desire' herb thing.

Yusuke was still seething, Kurama still looking at her with a calculative look in his eyes, Kuwabara didn't really seem to know what to do, Keiko still smiled a little uncomfortably, Mukuro just seemed to be analyzing the situation as a whole and Hiei looked utterly bored. Which left Genkai to sigh and pick up the thread of conversation.

"Right, so as a finalist you're a very likely candidate to be joining our team. How much do you know about why we need another member?"

Rei shrugged as she turned back to the old lady. "Something about a tournament requiring teams to have at least 2 females in order to enter."

Genkai nodded. "And you know what this tournament entails?" Rei twirled a wet strand of hair around her finger. Could she say what she knew? Koenma had never specifically forbidden her to.

"As far as I know you wish to find and destroy certain items that can somehow suck away a demon's energy."

Genkai looked her up and down speculatively. "You don't sound like you're particularly driven to the same cause."

Rei looked up, then grinned. "Ah yes, the ever remaining question of why I entered this tournament to attempt joining you guys huh? No I don't really know what's going on exactly in the Makai, but I do know these things mean trouble for the power balance there. And trouble in the Makai inevitably has a backlash onto the Ningenkai."

She shrugged. "But hey, I just want to get stronger. Fighting and training with you guys should be one hell of a way to reach that."

Genkai narrowed her eyes at her, but decided not to push the subject further. "If you win this, you will receive harsh training for the coming months, up until the tournament. We will be required to fight in teams of two, your training will be both individual and with each of the others."

She nodded. "Logical enough."

Genkai huffed. "Logical, but I don't think it's penetrating that thick skull of yours. For a human, you're not bad, you show potential. But you're nowhere _near_ the level we need you to be." She waited a moment to gauche Rei's reaction, who remained utterly still. "You will be training and fighting with S-classes. It will be like a mouse trying to keep up with a lion. Even just the training could kill you."

Rei narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to scare me into forfeiting or something? Because if you are, I'm sorry to disappoint Granny but I'm going through with this."

A small grin appeared on the old woman's face. "I figured as much. Truth is, it could be good if you won. The devices only work on demons, having an extra human at hand could prove useful." She narrowed her eyes again. "But don't think that means we'd trust you indiscriminately."

Rei rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

After having explained in full detail what was expected of her should she win the final round, they'd left her to her own musings. The finals would be the following day and she was still sore and bruised from her last fight. Unfortunately, she didn't have the luxury of an assistant with healing powers or a Yukina as a friend.

In the tv version it had all seemed hunky dory how the guys would get beat up to within an inch of their lives and five minutes later would look no worse for wear, most likely done to prevent traumatizing younger viewers. Reality however, meant that her bruises, sores and cuts required at least a good week to heal somewhat decently, and until then she definitely wasn't winning any beauty pageants.

She sighed as she took in her reflexion. She supposed she should feel lucky she hadn't broken any bones, fighting with bruises she could do, but broken bones were a serious game changer.

She walked out of the bathroom after having brushed her teeth and let herself fall down on the bed, not even bothering to drag the covers over herself. She was out before she even heard Jack complaining about her lack of grace.

* * *

She blinked up at the bright sunlight as she entered the arena. A loud ruckus descended over the stadium from the stands, making her look around in surprise at the amount of demons who had come to watch the final match. Their judges stood by as stoic as ever, though she could see Keiko clenching her fists and staring down at her as though intent on mentally telling her to win this.

She grinned at the thought, Keiko was a sweet girl and she understood what Yusuke saw in her. She shook her head slightly as she walked up to the ring. She'd just never understood the dynamics of their relationship.. the study nerd and the hooligan, what a match.  
She didn't get how those two understood what was important to the other, they had such different ideals. Then again, the manga and tv show only showed so much, maybe it hadn't gone exactly as she'd seen it portrayed.

She clambered up the large ring to see her opponent already prepped for battle, glaring down at her small stature. This demon wasn't much to look at, in fact it was hard to tell she was a female at all, if not for the obvious breast shapes in her tunic at the front.  
Her feet were hoofed, her hands like talons and she had a thick mane of green hair flowing around the many horns adorning the top of her head. She was the kind of demon one could only dream up in a nightmare.

The demon grinned at her small opponent. "Never thought I'd face a human in the finals, don't take it the wrong way when I say I feel like I've already won. I do hope you put up a bit of a fight little one."

Rei just stretched and flexed a bit in preparation. "Hey, may the best woman win right."

They took their stances as Yusuke started yelling to be heard through the stadium. "Okay ya'll know the drill, last one standing wins, surrender is accepted and more than 10 seconds out of the ring is a defeat. Now, ready? GO!"

* * *

Keiko sucked in her breath and clenched her fists so tight her knuckles turned white. Both fighters seemed to blur out of existence as soon as Yusuke had given the signal. She could see occasional flashes of pink, undoubtedly Rei's shielding, but barely anything physical of the two fighters themselves. Glancing over to the others she noticed they didn't have the same problem and she huffed before nudging Kuwabara. "Who's winning?"

He looked down at her in surprise, as if only now realizing she was there with them. As he looked back down to the fight he answered slowly. "Tough to say, they both seem to be kind of feeling the other out ya know. Not really giving it their all yet."

Looking back down she still couldn't see much, except when the fighters occasionally broke apart, staring intently at the other and breathing hard. Genkai grumbled beside Kuwabara. "She's in over her head."

Keiko's eyes widened. "What makes you say that?"Genkai didn't bother looking at her as she answered. "They're pretty evenly matched right now, but once Furiuko starts throwing in those vacuumed air attacks I doubt she'll last long. Rei's shields can only hold off physical and energy attacks it appears."

Keiko leaned forward as she continued watching the fight. Being unable to truly see what the fighters were doing, she couldn't follow every detail. But sure enough she soon noticed Rei was beginning to get covered in deep bleeding cuts.

Her eyes widened as she noticed the fighter nearly sink to her knees when she tried to get her defence up. "Oh my god, is she okay?"

Kuwabara threw her a quick reassuring smile. "She's doing pretty alright actually, she's managed to avoid each attack from hitting her straight on. Not a mean feat when you can see how fast Furiuko's tossing them out."

Keiko grumbled in frustration that she couldn't properly follow the fight below. Then nearly cried out when Rei got smashed against a far wall, her arm bleeding heavily.

Genkai smirked. "Smart girl."

Keiko turned unbelieving eyes at the old woman, who rolled her eyes before explaining. "Furiuko threw in several attacks at once, she had no chance at evading so instead she allowed herself to get hit taking the brunt of it with her arm and shielding her back upon impact with the wall, rather than shielding against an enemy who it would have little effect on."

Keiko just bit her lip, wishing it was over soon. She couldn't understand how the others could just watch this with such detached expressions on their faces. Only Kuwabara seemed to be slightly sympathetic. She looked back down as the short pink haired fighter jumped back into the ring, a determined look on her face. Her opponent seemed to grin and said something, but from the distance her human hearing couldn't pick it up.

* * *

The demon laughed. "You're not bad human, but you won't win this." Without hesitating she jumped up high and started charging another attack. Rei groaned, this seemed oddly reminiscent of her teacher attacking her with his energy the first time.

She pressed her hand firmly against her damaged arm, trying to staunch the heavy bleeding. Her vision was becoming blurry and the constant abuse the vacuum air was causing would probably leave her black and blue in the morning.

She'd been afraid her shields would be useless against this demon's attacks, seeing it a reality made her seriously wonder how the hell she was going to win this. She'd done her share of damage to the demon, but obviously the grotesque demoness was accustomed to such abuse and it would take a whole lot more to actually floor her.  
Considering how much damage she was taking herself, she doubted she'd be able to get the demon knocked out before she was no longer able to move herself.

Her eyes widened when she realized the demoness was creating a vacuum big enough to cover the entire ring. If she was caught in that she'd explode from the inside out. She whipped her head to the side as she heard Jack calling out to her.

"FORFEIT THE MATCH! DAMN IT WOMAN DON'T GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!"

Turning her gaze back to her opponent she focussed her energy and shielded herself, allowing the shield to grow and expand.

The demon merely laughed at her. "It didn't work before and it won't work now _human_."

Rei just smirked back, making the demon narrow her eyes before finally letting go of her attack and aiming it towards the ground.

* * *

Everyone seemed to tense as the massive vacuum was hurled towards the young woman in the ring. Keiko could almost swear she heard Genkai's teeth grit together.

Kuwabara leaned forward and grabbed the rail so hard his finger's shapes were now permanently dented in the metal. She would've grinned at his obvious preference if it weren't for the situation seeming to get out of hand.

The little dragon like creature below had screeched at Rei to forfeit and she couldn't help but believe he'd been right.

Just as the demon let go of her attack Keiko turned away, unwilling to look at the bloodbath that would ensue. She squeezed her eyes shut at the ghastly cry of pain following shortly after. Kuwabara nearly seemed to jump out of his skin as he started bellowing. "What the hell! How did she survive THAT?"

At his exclamation Keiko opened her eyes and whirled her head back to the fight. The demon landed back down in the ring and she noticed Rei standing on wobbly legs, her right half bleeding profusely. She seemed to breathe with difficulty before she swayed and then collapsed on her knees and hands.

She tried to push herself off the ground but the effort proved too much as she sunk down on the floor, her eyes closed in unconsciousness.

Kuwabara continued a little sheepishly "Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing or anything but, she should be dead."

Kurama answered him as Genkai declared Furiuko the winner of the tournament.

"She forced her shield to hit her opponent just as she threw the attack, thus unbalancing her and throwing the attack off course." He indicated an area next to the ring that now looked completely shredded. "She managed to avoid the brunt of the damage, unfortunately, it wasn't enough for her to remain in fighting condition."  
He smiled slightly. "She did well, but she required more training and experience."

Hiei huffed. "Hn, she wasn't good enough to win. That's all there's to it." He turned and casually strolled out of the stadium, Kurama staring after him with a curious look.


	7. Wait WHAT!

**~ Hellloooooooo ~**

 **First off, I'm sooo happy with the many good reviews. It's really awesome to hear people like this story! Really really really :D**

 **Secondly, I'm sorry it's taken this long to update. My laptop decided to go on strike a while back and getting a new one took quite a while. I do have general plot points I want to follow and I know where I want to head with this story, so I don't intend on quitting it! Just hope people reading it will keep liking it.**

 **And finally, here's the next chapter! Once again, though I find it rather obvious: I do NOT own Yu Yu Hakusho or its wonderful characters.**

* * *

The idyllic sound of blackbirds and robins… The rays of early morning sunlight glittering off the dewdrops, weighing down large grass stalks. Miniature stars trying desperately to reach the earth. The smell of damp soil permeating the air as life all around slowly began its morning rituals. Cars and school busses starting up in the distance as people made their way to begin another day of boring repetitive cycles.

Rei grumbled in annoyance. She turned over and dragged her pillow over her head in hopes of falling asleep again.  
She'd lost the stupid tournament. She'd been given a chance to enter this world and even join up with the actual real life freaking Reikai Tantei, and she goes and mucks it up. Just. Ffing. Perfect.

True she'd chosen to come here, knowing she might never even meet them. But come _on!_ She'd been sooo _close!  
_ She growled and flipped over again, throwing her pillow against the far wall of her small room in frustration and wincing when her injuries protested the sudden movements.

She'd been back at Kameki's for a little over two weeks now. Mostly moping about and half-heartedly participating in his training, which tended not to help the injury part.  
He'd refused to help her heal, saying her body still needed to get more pain tolerance and it was her own consequence to carry.  
She supposed he was right, if she'd been able to handle more pain she wouldn't have passed out during her match. But that didn't mean it wasn't damned annoying to feel every movement as though a knife was being wrenched through your body with brute force.

She still couldn't believe it, her one chance to enter the lives of the main people belonging to her favourite heroic tale and she botched it up.  
She couldn't very well seek them out after her defeat. She supposed she could go back to playing tag with the border patrol, but her heart just wasn't in it.

Dang, it sucked to be too weak. It always seems so awesome how your heroes somehow manage to save the day in the end, but when fiction turns to reality the rules no longer stay that simple. It's one thing to see a heroic story, it's another to actually become part of it.

Kameki never once went easy on her, despite her injuries, which slowed down the healing process significantly. Though most of it was now properly healed up and the heaviest bruises had faded to that lovely yellow colour.

Being this injured hadn't exactly helped her job either, not that Koenma had in any way felt sorry for her. If anything, he'd made her bust her ass off catching run away demons left and right. One of them had nearly lobbed her head off when she got a particularly nasty spell of dizziness after having been slammed back into a wall.  
Yeah, it was good to be back…

She threw off her covers and decided to go for a jog. Kameki had gone out for the day, leaving her a nice day off for once.  
Her hopes of sleeping in were now dashed, so she figured she might as well get some activity in. Jack was still snoring on his little poof in the corner, she grinned at his peaceful scaly face before quickly dressing and pulling on her sneakers. She plugged her ears with music and closed the door before setting off.

The morning was still cool and the fresh air made her skin prickle into goose bumps. She inhaled deeply as she settled into a nice running rhythm. Kameki lived on the outskirts of town, very few people were about yet and she enjoyed the calm as she went into a random direction.

* * *

She had been running for about an hour before she decided to make a turnabout and head back. It was amazing how much easier this kind of training had become for her compared to several months before.  
She halted her steps and froze as she suddenly sensed something, that was most definitely demonic, coming from the alley she'd just passed.

Narrowing her eyes she backed up a few paces, trying to discern whatever was lurking in the darkness. Legal demons wouldn't be hiding in alleyways.  
She turned off her music and slowly unplugged the ear phones before making her way to the alley. She kept her senses spread and her eyes darted to every nook and cranny that became visible as her sight adjusted to the dimmed lighting.

The energy didn't seem to move, so either they hadn't noticed her, or they didn't care. She hesitantly walked further into the alley, when a silhouette slowly walked up to her, she immediately took up a defensive stance. She moved to the side while trying to discern the figure appearing before her, keeping her back to the wall in case it turned out this demon wasn't alone.

"Hello detective."

She narrowed her eyes at the woman stepping towards her. She was rather beautiful, in an elegant kind of way. With a short curly blonde bob and eyes the colour of amethysts.

"Do I know you?"

The woman smiled. "Not yet."

Assessing that the demoness didn't appear to wish to fight her, Rei relaxed a little and crossed her arms.

"Right, let's cut the bullshit shall we? What do you want?"

The woman held her palms out as if in a gesture of peace. "Such impatience. I wanted to tell you about a situation you might be interested in."

Rei cocked a brow, not bothering to say anything as she waited for the stranger to continue.

"Two demon children have been kidnapped by humans, they've been held hostage for about 24 hours now."

She grabbed an envelope from her purse, the movement instantly making Rei tense up and uncross her arms defensively.  
The woman just smiled apologetically as she tried to make her movements as non-threatening as possible.

"This contains their location and some information on their captors."

Rei narrowed her eyes before hesitantly taking the envelope. "And what's in this for you? You're a demon, why don't you help them?"

The woman cocked her head to the side and shrugged.

"Not all demons are powerful fighters. Besides which, they've set up a barrier against demons around the mansion. Only a human is able to free them."

Rei snorted. "How convenient. What makes you think I care?"

The woman looked her up and down, as if trying to assess her. "Maybe I'm just hoping that you do."

Rei looked down at the envelope. "Are you the children's mother?"

She looked back up, only to find that she was entirely alone. She snorted again. "Great, mystery lady with vanishing powers and not even a name, how rude."

She walked a little deeper into the alley, but found no trace of anyone having ever been there. The surrounding area didn't give her anything but birds and she knew she wouldn't be able to find the woman again. Sighing she decided to head back to Kameki's.

She crossed the distance in a mere half hour, sprinting most of the way.  
Exhausted, she grabbed a drink from the fridge and plopped down on a chair before opening the envelope. It contained a map and a general description of the people involved in the kidnapping. Nothing as to the how or why, nor any information on the children themselves.

She groaned. This seemed highly suspicious.  
A loud yawn preceded the door to the kitchen being pushed open, making her look up.

"Whatcha doin' witch?"

She grinned at the sleepy looking dragon who popped up on the table to look at the map splayed before her.

"We going on a field trip?"

She leaned back while sipping her drink. "I dunno, I guess so…"

Jack started that low rumbling noise he did when he was about to singe her fingers for not talking fast enough and she quickly leaned back forward.

"Hey, I'm warm enough without you scorching my hair off thank you."

She pulled a hand through her bangs. "Apparently two demon kids were kidnapped by humans about a day ago. A kind of loan-shark, mafia type organisation. But there's no info on the kids themselves or anything."

He looked her up and down. "But you want to check it out anyway."  
It was a statement, not a question, and he snorted. "I take it this didn't come from Koenma?"

She shook her head. "Some demon lady just walked up to me and gave me the info. My guess is, she's the kids' mother or something. Apparently they erected a barrier to prevent demons from going in."

Jack frowned his scaly face. "They must have a powerful psychic, or several, on their side to be able to block out demons like that."

She nodded. "Yeah, this might be a doozy. And with so little information, we're groping in the dark here."

He rolled his eyes. "Well considering your track record for suicidal tendencies, this gig's right up your alley then."

She grinned at him again before finishing her drink and heading to the shower.

* * *

She wiped the sweat off her brow as they came to a halt somewhere in the middle of a forest in a large mountain range. Despite winter coming nearer, it was a sunny day and running for miles on end still managed to work up a proper sweat. She looked at Jack, perched on the ground, as she was catching her breath.

"Why can't evil lairs ever be found at a nice, easily accessible location?"

The tiny dragon snorted. "Remind me not to get my hopes up if I'm ever kidnapped and they send you as my rescue team."

She scowled at him while still breathing deep, steadying breaths. "Hey! I'm trying here. Not all of us get to ride piggy back mister: 'I'm too lazy to use my damn wings'."

He gave her a haughty look as he lazily curled his tail around his paws. "That's because I'm the brains and you're the brawn of the operation sweetheart."

She narrowed her eyes at him before standing up straight again, ready to keep going. "Fine, you can walk from here buster."

Jack threw her a sharp toothed grin and used the tip of his tail to indicate the area to her left. She looked over to see some kind of shimmering force field and sighed when she realized what it must be, so much for forcing him to walk.  
Walking over to it she gingerly held out her hand, half fearing it was going to zap her fingers once she touched it. Strangely enough, she didn't really feel anything.  
Had she been blind, she'd never have noticed it was there. She turned back to look at Jack.

"This it?"

He nodded and she placed her backpack on the ground before unzipping and searching through it. She pulled out two old fashioned looking walkie talkies and handed one to Jack, who grabbed it in his sharp claws and flew up to a thick tree branch. She pressed the button on hers and winced at the loud crackling noise.

"Testing."

She frowned. "Honestly, the damn Reikai needs to start investing in modern technology."

She heard Jack chortle above her. "Just get on with it woman, keep in touch and remember, this is a scouting mission, don't do anything stupid."

She snorted. "Really? And here I was, ready to run in guns blazing, come to save the day."

Jack just threw an exasperated look down to her and she shrugged grinning sheepishly.

"Stop your worrying grandma, unless they have someone like Furiko on their team my shields are pretty much impenetrable."

When Jack didn't change his expression and kept looking at her as though silently reprimanding her obvious stupidity she sighed.

"I'll be fine, I won't take any unnecessary risks."

With that she shouldered her backpack and grinned at him before moving to walk through the demon shield.

"Wish me luck!"

* * *

From the shield it still took her an hour's hike before she finally saw the large mansion splayed out before her.  
So far she hadn't been bothered by anyone. Either avoiding the cameras had been enough to escape their notice, or they didn't perceive her as enough of a threat to take her out before she reached the house.

She pulled out the walkie talkie and pressed the button.

"Okay, found the place. I'll be moving in to check it out, be in touch when I can."

It took a second before she heard the crackling of the other end of the line responding.

"Don't hesitate to take out anyone that spots you before they can sound the alarm witch. None of that soft human sensitivity's going to help you here."

She frowned before pressing the button again.

"Did you just insult my being human? Asshole."

She grumbled when he gave no response and repacked the walkie before setting off again. She took it slow, sticking to the perimeter first and carefully taking note of the guards walking around. Some of them were obviously demon, but most appeared to be just humans with some serious artillery.  
She was pretty confident her shield would stop bullets, as they were a physical kind of assault, but she couldn't say she was looking forward to having to test that theory.

She carefully snuck closer to the house, the place was massive. Crouching behind a large bush she dragged her backpack forward and fished out her spy glass, she grinned widely when she held it up to her right eye and scanned the building.  
Their technology might be old school, but the spirit world sure had some neat gadgets.

From what she could tell, most of the muscle was situated outside of the compound. She checked the lowest floors but couldn't find hide nor hair of anything remotely resembling children. She scowled, she really didn't want to go in there unless she was certain where she needed to head to.  
She looked over the entire building without the glass for a moment, noticing nothing particularly out of the ordinary that might give her a hint as to where the captives were kept.  
She grit her teeth. If there even _were_ captives. She was just starting to doubt whether or not the whole thing may have been a set up to lure the spirit detective into some kind of trap when she lifted up the spy glass once more and landed her eye on the top floor.

"Bingo."

Two small kids were tied separately to chairs in one of the upstairs rooms, they didn't appear to be older than 4 or 5 at most. She checked out the rest of the building, planning the route that would get her there as smoothly as possible. Packing up her stuff she slowly crawled back into the trees behind her before reaching for her walkie talkie. Pressing the button and holding it close to her mouth she tried not to speak too loud.

"Okay, I found the kids. Most of the security appears human, shouldn't be too tough."

There was silence for a while before she heard the static of the line opening again.

"Can you tell if anyone has an excessively powerful aura? Don't forget the barrier works two ways, even if you get the kids out, you won't be able to take them off the grounds, you gotta find the psychic first."

She cussed under her breath, she hadn't thought of that. Shit, where's Kuwabara and his dimension sword when you need it. She pushed the button again, sounding exasperated as she continued surveying her surroundings.

"If I find him do I just knock him out? Or do I need him to clear the barrier up for me?"

It didn't take long before she heard Jack's annoyed voice answering.

"For goodness sake witch, you can't just knock him out. Barriers like this become an existence of their own, he's going to have to take it down for you."

She heard him huff on the other end. And she pushed her button with a little more force than necessary.

"Well excuuuse me for asking. How should I know? If you knock me out it's not like my shield stays up, why should his?"

She could hear him snort before the crackling noise subsided.

"That's because you're still an amateur, now stop whining and get to it."

She rolled her eyes and started stashing her walkie, nearly dropping it when suddenly a loud set of alarm noises could be heard all over the area.

"Shit, what the hell?!"

She grabbed her stuff and slung the pack over her shoulder before crouching closer to the compound trying to discern whether or not she'd been found out. She noticed most of the previously patrolling guards made their way inside the mansion, leaving outside security just about halved. Something was up, but whatever it was hadn't been them picking up on her presence, or they'd have been on top of her already.  
She muttered under her breath as she started to manoeuvre closer to the building bit by bit. "Well… Never should look a gift horse in the mouth."

Running fast she let her back slam against the outer wall, quickly scanning her surroundings as she grabbed her stun gun from her pack. No need to allow anyone to raise another alarm if they spotted her.

She manoeuvred to a side door and opened it, allowing the door to slowly swing outwards as she pressed herself back against the wall again, waiting to see if anyone came to check why the door had opened. When no one showed up she rounded the corner, looking around the deserted hallway. Certain there was no one around, she closed the door as quietly as possible behind her and made her way along the corridor.

"Right, so… If I were an insanely powerful psychic, where would I be…?"

She turned a corner and pressed herself against the wall behind a potted plant as she heard footsteps hurrying in her direction.

"What's going on?! Damn it, isn't there anyone who knows how to do their fucking job right?!"

Some woman and three guards made their way past her hiding spot, apparently too pre-occupied to notice her, which suited her just fine. As soon as they were out of hearing distance she continued on her way. There had to be a way to identify the blasted psychic. She sighed. Assuming there would _be_ only _one_ psychic that is.

She couldn't suppress a scream when she was suddenly thrown against the opposite wall, seeing spots while her breath was momentarily knocked out of her and her ears were ringing from the noise of what had apparently been some kind of explosion. She pushed the large chunks of rubble off of her while shaking her head to try and clear it.

"Jeez, and here I always thought you were the more self possessed member on our team."

Rei blinked through the dust clouding the air, she knew that voice.

"Stop whining, this way's shorter, now come on, they'll be on top of us any minute now."

She frowned, she definitely knew _that_ grouchy voice.  
Recognizing a tell tale mop of orange hair as the dust started to settle she gasped, making them take up fighting stances as they noticed her.

"Kuwabara?"

Now that they could finally see clearly again they blinked at each other before saying in unison: "What the hell are _you_ doing here?!"

Not relaxing their stances one bit, she now noticed the short older woman next to him, that voice had been Genkai after all.

"Yeah kid, what _are_ you doing here?"

The older woman cast her a heavy glare full of suspicion but Rei looked behind them when movement caught her eye and she noticed a group of guards aiming their weapons at them. Ignoring the aggresive stances of the two in front of her, she stepped forward and focussed her shield out, encompassing all three of them inside it just as the guards opened fire.

"Well, I'd love to talk it over, but I think not getting killed is a bit of a priority right now, don't you?"

Genkai still looked her over suspiciously, but both of them relaxed their stances none the less.

"I assume you're both here for the kids too?"

Kuwabara nodded gravely, his jaw set tight as he squeezed his fists untill his knuckles turned white. "Yeah.."

Rei nodded while keeping her eyes on the guards still uselessly emptying their rounds on them.

"Okay, then I suggest we try different routes to get to the top floor. It'll distract the guards and give them less chances of taking the kids away from here before we can get to them."

Kuwabara looked her over, as if unsure if he could trust her and trying to find the answer written somewhere on her person.

Genkai huffed. "It's a plan kid, I'll stick with you, I'm not so sure we can trust you just yet. Kuwabara, you follow our original direction."

Rei couldn't help but smile slightly at their continued distrust of her, if only they knew how much she was on their side. But she figured it probably didn't look very good, finding her in the middle of this place when they were trying to rescue a bunch of kids.

Remembering the psychic she still hadn't found, she frowned and looked at Kuwabara.

"Why the hell is it only you two in here? Couldn't you have just sliced that stupid barrier to bits out there?"

Kuwabara threw her a dark look as Genkai darted out of her shield and started taking out guards in rapid succession.

"Because I wasn't gonna alert them to our presence and risk them running off with, or killing, my kids."

She nodded a little absentmindedly in agreement untill the last part of his sentence hit her.  
Her eyes grew wide as saucers just as the last of the guards dropped unconscious. She looked up at Kuwabara in mild shock.

"Wait.. _WHAT_...?!"


	8. Reunion

**Short chapter this time!  
Didn't want to just leave it hanging at the introduction of that loveable oaf being a dad, a decision which I reckon not everyone will like.  
Ah well life's tough, I for one think he'd make a wonderful if sometimes frustrating father figure :)  
And I wonder what kind of an effect being an uncle will have on Hiei's character... ^^**

 **I'd also like to throw out there that I don't have a beta reader or any such thing, so if you spot annoying mistakes or find things unclear please don't hesitate to vent your frustration in a constructive review.**

* * *

You know that stupid kind of expression you can get on your face when someone tells you something completely unexpected out of the blue?  
Like: 'by the way, sorry, but I just completely trashed your car outside.' or 'actually I've had a crush on you for the last ten years.'  
random stuff you're so totally unprepared for that your automatic response is one of non plussed idiocy and all you can do is just stare at them blankly with your mouth slightly open as your brain momentarily has a melt down trying to process the information. Now that's just about what Rei looked like in that exact moment, craning her neck as she stared up at Kuwabara.

Genkai walked back over to them, a smug expression on her face.

"Well well, it appears our little know-it-all doesn't know _everything_ after all."

Rei just blinked stupidly before recollecting herself and frowning slightly as she turned to look at Genkai.  
But before anything else could be said Kuwabara spoke up.

"Come on you guys, we ain't got time for this. I'm headin' upstairs I'll see you guys there."

They watched him take off before Genkai turned back to her.

"After you, miss 'almost won the tournament'."

Rei threw a dirty look at the grin Genkai was giving her before taking off in the opposite direction. She was starting to see why Yusuke tended to get so frustrated with the old hag sometimes.

They ran along a couple hallways, taking down a few stray guards, before they came across a broad staircase. Not wanting to waste any more time, Rei ran up straight away, only narrowly jumping aside as a bunch of sharp instruments were hurled at her.  
Before the second rain of razor sharp needles could hit, she cast her shield around the both of them, trying to discern where the attacks were coming from.

Realizing his offensive wasn't having the desired effect, a kind of porcupine creature stepped out from behind a pillar, his eyes nearly squeezed shut as he surveyed them.

"I'm afraid I can't let you go any further ladies."

Hearing an enraged roar, that could only be Kuwabara, coming from above them, Rei narrowed her eyes and charged the demon. She shielded her hand before hitting him with all her might, thus rendering his protective needle coat useless as she smashed him into the wall.

"Sorry pall, but we're on a tight schedule."

She ran ahead, Genkai casting a furtive glance at the damage as she followed. They ran down a couple more hallways, but there didn't appear to be anymore stairs leading to the top level. Finding yet another dead end Rei ground her teeth in frustration.

"Damn it!"

Genkai looked up as there appeared to be a lot of noise coming from directly on top of them. "I think they've all moved into the area around the kids, Kuwabara will be needing help."

Rei rolled her eyes as the noises of obvious fighting could be heard. "Yeah, no shit Sherlock."

Genkai just shrugged, then took her stance and aimed a spirit gun at the ceiling.

"Wait! You could hit Kuwabara!"

Genkai threw her a very annoyed look. "Honestly girl, I'm not an amateur, I can tell where he is."

With that she released her gun, the ceiling crashing down instantly, bringing with it a dozen or so guards. Rei was momentarily too impressed to feel insulted by Genkai's snappy remark, but then she froze as her instincts kicked in gear and every fiber of her being tensed when she felt and knew what was going to happen in mere moments.

"Shit!."

Without hesitation she vaulted over the rubble, using the heads of several guards to propel herself forwards towards the massive windows at the opposite end of the room they found themselves in.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Genkai scowled at her sudden retreat, her eyes widening when Rei jumped up hard and launched herself through the window, shattering the glass and flying through at top speed.

"What the.. We're on the third floor you fool!"

What followed happened in mere seconds, but felt like slow motion.  
The high squealed pitch of two children's voices followed by the agonized scream of Kuwabara. The shards of glass cutting into Rei's arms as she hadn't shielded herself in her haste. The whoosh of air hitting her before she dared to look up and crashed into the two falling bodies coming from above her.  
She grabbed hold of both children firmly as all three plummeted down to earth like a human canon ball, forming a flexible shield just in time to bounce all of them back up off the ground.

Her ears were ringing with the children's constant screams as she tried to somewhat control their bouncy random landings. Unfortunately she hadn't practiced this and the result was them flying all over the place, though they were bouncing up less and less high with each collision.  
Eventually they ended up sprawled out rather inelegantly in a bunch of bushes near the end of the driveway, covered in twigs and leaves.

It took mere moments before they were surrounded by every guard that had been left outside to guard the perimeter.  
Rei was about to clamber out of her clumsy position in the branches when she noticed the guards freeze, surrounded by flashes, before falling to the ground.

The kids cried out with relief and jumped up out of the bushes, running towards the now visible Hiei and Kurama. Rei just looked on sheepishly as they were joined by Yusuke and who could only be Botan and Yukina, who hugged the two kids close to her chest as she fell to her knees.

The others only then noticed her and she just waved a little stupidly. "Ehm, hi?"

She looked up as she heard a snort from above her. "Splendid figure you're making witch."

She grinned at Jack. "Tsk, you're just jealous you missed out on all the action."

She looked back forward as Kurama walked up to her, offering her his hand. She took it, smiling a little self consciously as he pulled her up and watched her pluck the twigs out of her hair and off her clothes. It took a moment before he spoke.

"So."

She looked up at his scrutinizing green eyes.

"We meet again."

She swallowed a little nervously, talking to the fox always felt like a kind of interrogation somehow. "So we do." Then she frowned in confusion. "How'd you all get past the barrier?"

Botan jumped up happily. "Oh that was me! I dragged that blasted psychic back there and whacked him over the head until he finally took it down."

Rei half laughed, half snorted at Botan's quasi innocent face as she proudly squeezed her biceps, wearing a look as if she was obviously the most useful addition to the team.

She bounced forward like a happy ball of energy, looking Rei over curiously. "I'm Botan by the way, who are you?"

Thankfully, the arrival of Genkai and Kuwabara prevented her from having to answer the rather 'in your face' blue haired female.  
Genkai was grinning at her as Kuwabara joined Yukina in hugging the children and practically bawling his eyes out.

"Nice stunt you pulled there kid."

Rei couldn't help but grin back. "Thanks grandma, am I finally off your suspicions list then?"

Genkai crossed her arms, as Rei noticed Hiei's eyebrows twitch in annoyance and disbelief at the sentimental display Kuwabara was making. She smiled at his reaction before her attention was drawn back to Genkai when she answered.

"That depends. How did you know about this abduction?"

She shrugged as Jack landed lazily on her shoulder. "Some demon lady told me about it and asked me to look into it because she couldn't. I figured she was their mother or something, though apparently she wasn't."

She looked over to Yukina just as the demoness got to her feet, smiling with teary eyes, though being a true ice maiden she didn't really cry.

"Oh I'm sorry, I haven't even introduced myself yet. My name is Yukina. Thank you so much for helping Kazuma and Genkai save our children."

Rei smiled a little uncomfortably at the ice maiden's sweet nature, turning to look at Hiei when she heard him scoff. Her breath froze midway her lungs for a second when his deep red eyes locked with hers.

"Some stranger asks you to help them save a bunch of children and you just go? Out of the goodness of your heart?"

The sarcasm dripping off his voice was unmistakeable and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Then you're either naive and stupid or you're making up some bullshit story to placate us."

She crossed her arms as she scowled at him. "Great, so I'm either stupid or a liar, good to know you think so highly of me."

Then she groaned, too tired to defend herself against their never ending suspicions of her any longer. "Look, whatever. I did what I came here for, you guys have a good day."

She turned her back on them and started walking back to where her backpack had fallen near the house.

"Come on Jack, let's head home."

She'd only taken about five steps when Kuwabara jumped up, wiping his nose on his arm as he yelled after her.

"Hey, wait!"

She turned, cocking an eyebrow in question as she took in his disheveled appearance. Apparently the abduction of his children had hit him pretty hard.  
He ran up to her and grabbed her hands, making her hope he didn't have any snot on them as she gave him an uncomfortable look.

"You can't go, we've been looking all over for you!"

She frowned and looked around him at the others before staring back up at him in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

Ever the eloquent speaker, Kurama decided to take over, though she wished Kuwabara would release her hands already.

"It's true actually, Furiuko has forfeited her spot and as you are the runner up, it's yours. Though it appeared not even your father knew where we could contact you and you hadn't been to school in months."

She gave him a sceptical look. "Furiuko 'forfeited' her spot? What, just like that?"

She looked to Hiei as he responded, grateful that Kuwabara finally let go of her in the meantime.

"Yeah, we found it rather suspicious as well."

The way he said it, combined with the way he was looking at her, added more than enough info to that message, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"What are you implying porcupine? Just throw it out there, don't get all cryptic on me now. You're usually so renowned for your directness."

A dangerous glint flashed through his eyes as he gave her a threatening look.

"I'll let it slide this one time, but call me names like that again and you'll wish you hadn't woman."

Genkai huffed. "Now, now children, play nice. We have no reason to assume she had anything to do with Furiuko's forfeiting. And her actions today seem to prove she's on our side."

She hesitated a moment as she gave Rei a penetrating stare.

"For now."

Rei just rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, ignoring Jack who seemed to be trying to make the tips of her hair catch fire out of boredom.

"Look can we get to the point? What does this mean?"

Yusuke walked over with a wicked smirk, his eyes twinkling in a way that said he was going to enjoy picking her apart.

"It means, shortie, that you'll be spending a _lot_ of quality time with us from here on out. And trust me when I say, you won't be enjoying it."


	9. Introductions

**Here we go, chapter 9!  
Rei's having a mild case of fangirl-itis in this one, I think it was a little overdue ;)**

 **Once again I do (unfortunately) NOT own Yu Yu Hakusho.**

* * *

"You ready yet kid? I haven't got all day!"

She threw the last of her clothes in a heap into her pack, zipped it up and slung it across her shoulder. "Yeah, coming!"

Tying her hair up in a messy bun, she ran through the temple to where Genkai was waiting.  
Turns out, Yusuke was wrong. On both counts no less. First off, she hadn't been spending any quality time with the boys, at all. And second off, she was loving every minute of this so far.

In order to sort of, 'warm her up' for her training with the guys, Genkai had decided to take her apart for the first two weeks. And by 'apart' she meant both literally _and_ figuratively.  
The absolute best part however was that, unlike living with her sadistic mentor Kameki, the ever sweet Yukina couldn't bear to watch her drag her 'ready for the nearest intensive care' ass to her room each night. Which had resulted in a daily blissful healing session one could quickly get addicted to.  
The combination of her body's insane healing rate and Genkai's gruelling training left her feeling just about ready for anything right now.  
Of course, logically she knew any S class demon could still rip her to shreds, but why rain on her own parade?

Apart from training her strength, speed and endurance, Genkai had also forced her into mastering the projection of her shield on others. And by 'forced' she meant having to endure seeing Yukina get beat up until she finally got so angry she managed to shield the poor woman. Personally she still thought this method had been rather medieval on Genkai's part, even if she knew Yukina could withstand much worse after her experiences with Torugane. She was pretty sure Hiei would've sliced Genkai to ribbons had he known about it, even though Yukina kept saying she'd been 'happy to help'.

Now, it was finally time to join the boys. And, like the new kid on the playground, she was both excited and anxious at the same time.  
She'd actually been blonde enough to ask Genkai why they weren't training here, at Genkai's temple. She still had to smirk at the affronted look Genkai had given her before explaining exactly _why_ a couple of S class demons training all out in the human world was a _bad_ idea.

The fact that the guys had been training together for so long made her feel even more uneasy. They knew each other and each others techniques inside and out, she was sooo going to be the odd one out here.

She smiled nervously at Genkai as she joined her by the waiting portal. Yukina had already gone ahead to join her family and let everyone know they would be coming. Jack had decided to go with the ice apparition, saying 'packing stuff' wasn't exactly his favourite hobby. Seriously, the support that dragon gave her was mind blowing sometimes.

She sucked in a breath when they stepped through the portal and entered into Tourin, taking in the enormous expanse of desolate landscape before her. She'd only ever been to the upper levels of demon world and she could easily say that, though intruiging in its own right, it wasn't near as massive as this place. The reddish sky covered tall dwellings carved from sand coloured rock surrounded by an endless expanse of intertwining forest and tundra like, rough landscapes.  
Genkai walked ahead as Rei stood taking in the scenery, only to turn around when she realized her charge was missing.

"We don't have all day you know, go act the tourist on your own time."

Rei threw a bashful smile her way before jogging to catch up to her. "Sorry, the place is kind of impressive."

"I am pleased to hear you like it."

Both women looked up after hearing the phrase, watching as a lone figure emerged from the trees. Rei smiled, recognizing his monk like appearance. But she decided that maybe it was best not to push her luck by letting them know that she already knew him.

"My name is Hokushin, I am here to show you your quarters seeing as the others are in training at the moment."

Rei held out her hand enthusiastically. "It's a pleasure to meet you Hokushin. I'm Rei."

He looked at her hand a little non plussed before looking up into her eyes again. "Follow me please."

He turned and started walking, leaving Rei standing awkwardly with her hand outstretched as Genkai proceeded to follow the demon.

"Right.." She jogged slightly again until she fell into step with Genkai, who cast her a semi amused glance. Rei didn't care, she was too psyched to be where she was.

Hearing a sudden explosion and seeing an enormous cloud of smoke rising a good distance away from the 'village', she looked up in question.

"That would be the training grounds." Hokushin grinned slightly. "They used to be closer to home, but I'm afraid with so many S classes we've had to move to a more secluded area." Rei quirked a brow, as far as she knew there were only four S classes in their group.

Seeing her confused expression Hokushin explained. "In order to help prepare everyone for team fighting, some of our friends 'volunteered' to help." She frowned at the way he said 'volunteered' but didn't push for more information after seeing the devilish grin that started appearing on his face before he faced forward again.

Shaking her head she continued following behind him while trying to discern what was going on in the distance. Though, besides dust rising, she didn't really make anything out. Genkai snorted. "Hmph, volunteered indeed, those knuckle heads were all too eager for the chance to test their mettle against Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei again."

Rei turned her head to look at Genkai, who seemed slightly exasperated by the 'eagerness of youth' which surrounded her. "Not against Mukuro then?"

It was Hokushin who answered, though he didn't look back at them this time. "Although the demon tournament has succesfully established a new form of rule in the Makai, it is difficult to let go of old titles. Many a demon still defer to Mukuro and Yomi as lords, seeing them as an 'equal' just feels wrong to most of us."

Rei grinned. "Just Mukuro and Yomi huh? I guess Yusuke didn't inherit his old man's title then."

Genkai actually chuckled. "The dimwit is a surprisingly good unifier and even has, dare I say this out loud, the makings of a good leader. But it's hard to defer to someone as your 'lord' when he's so overly eager to treat you as an equal all the time."

Hokushin laughed loudly at that. "It's true, it's hard not to like him. His ease at treating others with such casualty makes it difficult for many to view him in the same light as Mukuro and Yomi, they are much more adept at making you feel the gulf between your own power and theirs."

Genkai grinned and Rei noticed that the old woman exuded something akin to pride, which caused her to smile. "The kid's offhand manner tends to lead to others underestimating him." The old woman looked at Hokushin in slight amusement. "Do you remember his fight against what's his name the previous tournament? Even I have to admit it was entertaining."

Hokushin nodded. "A mistake that particular demon won't be making again I'm sure."

Rei wondered what it was like to see the demon tournament, imagining it must be some intense stuff to watch. "The next tournament is the coming year right?"

Hokushin cast her a curious glance over his shoulder. "Indeed, do you plan on entering?"

Rei's eyes widened and she sputtered slightly as she responded. "Who me?! No way, I'm not even a demon." She shrugged. "Or well, not enough to count anyway."

Hokushin tilted his head, as if he was filing away this information for later, before replying. "That hasn't stopped Mr Kuwabara from entering."

Rei frowned. "Oh, yeah I hadn't thought of that. No one had any problems with a human entering the tournament then?"

Hokushin sort of chuckled just as they entered the village. The buildings were a lot taller up close, she dared say they were taller than any skyscraper she'd ever seen. "I wouldn't say that exactly, but that particular human has some powerful friends. And no one really thought he would win. Especially when his first one on one match was to be against Hiei."

Rei's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets at that revelation, but before she could ask, Hokushin indicated a building to his right. "You will find your quarters on the fifteenth level to the right. Everyone is expected to take care of their own needs, if you don't know where to find something, you are of course free to ask." With that, he vanished, quite literally, leaving the two women to figure things out for themselves.

Genkai turned to enter the massive tower like structure. "Come on let's get settled and we'll drag your sorry ass over to the training grounds."

* * *

Naturally, demon world didn't appear to have heard of the invention of the elevator. So, after having climbed an insane amount of stairs and dumping her bag into some very spartan quarters, she was 'happy' to note she was going to get very intimately acquainted with these particular stairs over the coming months.

Outside she noticed Genkai was already waiting for her and she immediately asked the question that had been pressing on her mind ever since observing her tiny new room. "Where's the bathroom?"

Genkai grinned a little maliciously and pointed to the woods. "I'm afraid indoor plumbing is still a work in progress, you'll have to do your thing the old fashioned way."

Rei groaned before rushing off into the woods to do her business, this little field trip suddenly looked a whole lot less exciting.

Knowing the old woman's lack of patience, she hurried back and followed after the blurr that used to be Genkai.  
They reached the training grounds in good time and soon joined Yukina, her twins, Keiko and a sleeping Jack on a low cliff overlooking the scene some distance from the 'danger zone.'

Rei looked on in astonishment as a massive blue bird revealed itself behind them by lifting his head upon their arrival. She'd originally thought he'd been part of the foliage, albeit an odd colouring. Recognizing who could only be Puu she smiled up at him. "My, my, aren't you a beauty?"

Puu seemed content with her comment and lazily went back to his nap. Keiko and Yukina both said their hellos politely, but the twins seemed too occupied watching the proceedings below. The light haired girl appeared to be chewing on her nails as the red headed boy was punching mock blows into the air, jumping around while yelling encouraging comments.

Yukina smiled warmly before adressing them. "Children, say hello to Genkai and Rei. You remember Rei don't you? She helped save you from those people a while back."

The boy barely spared them a haughty glance and a small wave before turning back to look at the fighting, but the girl smiled shyly at them. "Hello auntie Genkai, and thank you for helping us miss Rei."

Rei knelt down in front of the pretty red eyed demon and smiled broadly. "You're welcome. I'm afraid I don't even know your name little lady."

Yukina smiled kindly as she laid her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "This is my daughter Arare and that." She indicated the still overly enthusiastic little boy near the cliff's edge. "Is my son Kogasu, I'm afraid he gets a little pre-occupied when watching his uncle fight."

At that, Rei looked down towards the gulf in which the fighting took place, and sure enough she noticed a bare chested Hiei coming to a stand still on top of a large boulder while assessing the situation. Forcing herself to drag her eyes away from the attractive image he made, she looked to Yukina. "So you know he's your brother then?"

Yukina gave her a puzzled look but nodded. "Yes, I realized it for some time before he finally dared to admit it in his own gruff way, though he never really said as much." She cocked her head to the side slightly. "I've heard them say you appeared to know much about us, how did you know that I was unaware of my brother's identity?"

Rei shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "I'm not sure I'm at liberty to say.." She laughed a little awkwardly, but Yukina didn't press her further and merely smiled. The koorime really was too kind and trusting sometimes.

Genkai gruffly interrupted them. "I'd hate to break up your little heart to heart, but unless you start paying attention I'll be forced to toss you in there to make you learn girl. So get to work."

Rolling her eyes at Genkai's lack of patience, Rei moved forward and sat down next to Kogasu, her legs dangling over the edge. "So.. Who's winning?"

Puffing out his chest, the boy answered without taking his eyes off the fighting below. "Uncle Hiei and Kurama of course, they make the best team ever!"

Rei narrowed her eyes as she regarded the scene below, she hadn't really thought about the fact that they were training in teams. "Who are they up against?"

Kogasu grumbled slightly before answering. "Touya and Jin."

Rei whistled. "Fire and Ice huh? Interesting match up."

Kogasu snorted. "Heh, Fire beats Ice hands down. It's that darned wind master that keeps jumping out of reach."

Another set of rocks burst to rubble and her attention was drawn to Jin having narrowly missed Kurama with one of his twister arms, taking advantage of the distraction, Hiei attacked him from his other side, but the wind master was too quick and Hiei barely managed to dodge a set of ice bullets thrown his way, just as Kurama curled his whip around Jin's ankle and dragged him back down to the ground. Kogasu meanwhile, never ceased in yelling encouraging comments and punching and kicking the air around him. Rei laughed as she dodged one of his misplaced kicks.

She looked back down and sucked in a breath when she noticed Jin held on to Kurama's whip, keeping the fox from moving as Touya aimed to throw another iceblast his way. Acting spontaneously she jumped down from her perch and stood on a rocky outcropping before focussing her energy around the redhead, shielding him and effectively blocking out the rain of hail bullets, though the force of it was so powerful her shield vanished right after and she felt slightly drained.

Touya's surprise made him hesitate and he didn't block Hiei's fiery fist in time, making the both of them crash into the rock wall and crumbling a major portion of it. Her little interruption had effectively drawn their attention however, and she shifted uncomfortably as all four fighters stood to look at her.

"Sorry, I was just curious to see if it would work..."

She suddenly felt terrible about interrupting their sparring session, but Kurama smiled and walked over to her. "Good to see it did."

He hopped up onto the broad rock beside her, soon followed by Jin who sat casually in the air. "Nice trick ya had there lass. Ye must be tha new girl everyone's been talking 'bout. Name's Jin, it's good ta finally meet cha."

She grinned at his easy going manner and heavy accent. "I'm Rei, it's great to meet you. I'm really envious of your power over wind."

He smiled broadly as his ears wiggled in pleasure. "Are ya now? Could take ya for a spin if ya like?"

Her eyes gleamed hopefully but Yusuke interrupted them as he jumped up on the ridge out of nowhere and pulled her into a headlock. "Who said anything about being allowed to cheat during training huh? We're supposed to fight two on two squirt."

She squirmed in his hold, barely noticing the crowd of people that now started to surround them. Giving up trying to get out of Yusuke's grasp she smiled awkwardly at Kuwabara and waved as he approached them. "Hey Rei, I see you've survived Genkai's training."

The old woman snorted as she landed on the rocks beside them. "We're hardly finished. She's going to require a lot more if she's to be of any use to us."

When Yusuke finally released her, he spun her around to face many a familiar face. "Let me introduce you to these guys. They've magnanimously volunteered to help beat you into shape over the coming months."

Yusuke threw her an evil grin as he pointed out each fighter. "This here's Rinku, that's Suzuka." She couldn't suppress an amused snort as Suzuka scowled heavily at Yusuke, undoubtedly not pleased at the omission of the word 'beautiful'. "The guy whose attack you just blocked is Touya." She felt a little uncomfortable under the ice demon's impassive stare, he seemed to be measuring her up somehow. "You already know Hiei." At this one she let her eyes slide right past him, unsure what she'd find if she dared look at him directly. "And this guy's Shishiwakamaru. I guess there's no point introducing you to Jin."

She bowed respectfully. "My name's Rei, please take care of me."

Yusuke scratched his head as he seemed to talk to no one in particular. "I'd kinda hoped Chu would come over too, but I guess he's too busy chasing skirt."

Rei quirked a brow at him, but turned to see Rinku give an annoyed response. "Meh, he's been trying to win Natsume over ever since the first Makai tournament. The guy needs to get out more."

Shishi spoke up next, eyeing her curiously. "So, we hear you're related to Genkai? I can see the resemblance. Are you as good a fighter?"

Rei looked up at him, feeling a bit taken aback at the intense stare he was giving her. "Hardly, but I'll do my best."

Genkai scoffed. "Stop oggling her, if we want to be prepared for that darn tournament we better get a move on."

Yusuke grinned as he slapped a hand on Genkai's shoulder, who gave him an annoyed look in return. "Relax grandma, we're just making her feel welcome before we leave her at the mercy of her new teacher."

Rei's eyes widened slightly as she looked at Yusuke's smug expression. "New teacher?"

He grinned at her as he crossed his arms. "Yeah squirt, you heard right. Based on Genkai's experience with you, we've found you the perfect one, I'm sure you'll absolutely love it."

She quirked a brow, losing patience with his attempt to torment her. "So, we're not training together just yet then?"

Genkai took over before Yusuke could prolong the situation any more. "I believe it's in our best interest to focus on honing your shielding abilities. Offensively, we have all the canonpower we need, so to speak. Even if we would be able to get your fighting skills to A level in such a short amount of time, which is doubtful, it's hardly prudent. You're an asset to us because, given proper training, you could make your teammate impervious to damage."

Nodding hesitantly Rei wondered why this meant she was being handed over to a different trainer.

Seeing her pupil was slow in catching on just yet, Genkai rolled her eyes. "We've managed to get you so far as to be able to project your shields, I'll admit being able to stop Touya's attack with it was a very good start too. But you're forgetting something rather vital girl."

Rei grimaced at Genkai's continuous use of the word 'girl' but knew better than to comment on it.

"You don't actually think your partner will remain stationary during the whole fight do you?"

Rei bit the inside of her cheek as she shook her head. "I don't suppose so no." She shrugged sheepishly. "I admit I haven't given it much thought, you reckon I can't keep someone shielded properly when they move around?"

Genkai nodded. "I have my doubts, even if you can to an extent, these blockheads over here tend to be frustratingly fast, I'd be surprised if you can keep up."

Nodding again Rei stood straight and looked resolutely at Yusuke. "Okay, then who will be my new sensei?"

Yusuke smirked. "Our fastest team member of course."

Eyes widening, Rei turned abruptly, staring into a pair of ruby red eyes that seemed to burn her from the inside out.


	10. Shoot me now please

Mewling loudly she dug her nails into his back as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. _gods he smells good.._

shaking her head from the unbidden thought she hung on tightly as he raced through the trees. Keeping her eyes firmly shut she moaned uncomfortably. "You know, I don't think this is working!"  
She groaned when he seemed to pick up speed rather than losing it. "As much as I'm a fan of vertigo... I _really_ don't see how making me motion sick is going to improve my shielding!"

At the mention of the word sick he halted abruptly and dropped her to the forest floor, forcing a surprised yelp from her lips. She scowled up at him. " _Ouch.._ "

She rubbed her ass cheeks while muttering more to herself than her new and very frustrating teacher. "Was that necessary?"

He just stared down at her, obviously not going to deign that question with a response. She sighed as she picked herself up off the floor. Somehow she still felt like Hiei was using this opportunity to punish her for having escaped him during her earlier days in the Makai.

She crossed her arms over her chest and resolutely looked up into his blood red eyes. "Look, none of this is working, you're too fast for my eyes to follow, let alone being able to shield you as you move. And trying to get me to become accustomed to your speed like this is.." She pondered for a moment before continuing. "Well unless you want me to puke up my breakfast, I'm pretty sure it's not going to give any desireable results."

He smirked slightly, making her narrow her eyes at his obvious enjoyment of her discomfort. She turned to look as she heard a chuckle coming from beside them, though Hiei had apparently been aware of their pursuer for he didn't appear to react at all.

Kurama calmly stepped forward. "Might I make a suggestion?"

She rolled her eyes and flopped back down on a dusty rock. "By all means."

Kurama seemed to assess the both of them before he offered his advice. "I think you're going about this the wrong way. You're trying to focus on the physical, but at your current level you have no hope of being able to keep up with any of us."

She groaned as she let her head fall back, looking up at the bright sky. "Yeah, tell me about it."

Kurama smiled as he looked from her to Hiei, giving the fire demon a knowing look. "You should focus on the essence."

Her head bobbed back up as she looked at him in question. "The essence?"

Kurama nodded sagely. "Yes, hone in on a person's essence and connect yourself to them. I think it will be the only way for you to keep them shielded. I suppose you could compare it to Hiei's mind reading, though less invasive."

She frowned. "Ooo...kay. And how exactly do you _do_ that? Is that like, a person's aura or something?"

Kurama smiled mysteriously as he cocked his head. "Not exactly, but I'm sure Hiei will be happy to indulge your curiousity as to the finer points of connecting with someone on such an intimate level."

Her eyes widened slightly at his choice of words, while Hiei threw his longtime friend a glare that would've brought many a wheathered demon to his knees. Kurama merely grinned mischievously before waving and casually walking off with his hands in his pockets.

Rei shook her head. "What the hell is he on about?"

She was about to get up again when Hiei spoke. "Sit."

His commanding tone left no room for disobedience and she immediately sat back down, looking at him as he took up a crosslegged meditative position on the grass in front of her. She looked on in awe as he closed his eyes, only to slowly open his third one a moment later. She stared at its violet hue in wonder, wanting to take a closer look, but afraid her hot tempered teacher wouldn't appreciate it if she did.

The eye turned to look at her, which felt slightly awkward. Cocking her head to the side she couldn't refrain from commenting. "So.. are _you_ seeing me now? Or am I having a moment with the Jagan in particular?"

Hiei's red eyes opened again, glaring at her slightly, though the Jagan remained open as well, seeming to have a mind of its own as it regarded her from head to foot. She shivered slightly. "You know, this is really kind of weird."

Hiei's tell tale tiny smirk appeared again and she huffed at him. "You truly are a bit of a sadist aren't you?"

Ignoring her rethoric question he commented. "You're going to have to drop your mental shields if you hope to feel, and connect with, another's essence."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You just want to pry around in my mind."

He stared at her for a long moment, as if silently reprimanding her for her foolishness. "I hardly think the mind of a teenage human female holds anything of interest."

She ground her teeth. "You know what I meant, you still want to pry around and find out how I know so much about you guys."

He narrowed his red eyes, while his Jagan still appraised her slowly. "I have no reason to worry onna, your fragile little life can easily be ended if it turns out you intend to betray us. Learning about your past and your motives is just a matter of time."

She snorted. "My, my, did the fox's patience finally rub off on you?"

He kept staring her down as he spoke again. "Drop your shields woman."

She blushed slightly and averted her gaze. "Honestly, I don't know how. I think the mental shielding is a bit of a subconscious thing."

He looked her over, as if questioning her honesty, making her scowl at him. "What? I'm just a 'stupid human teenager' remember? I don't have decades of experience with this stuff."

He sighed, sounding as if he was tired of being surrounded by such incompetence. "Just try."

Grumbling slightly she shifted on her uncomfortable rock and closed her eyes, focussing intently on trying to drop a shield she didn't know existed. After what felt like an eternity, she started to feel a slight tingling sensation, as if something incorporeal was probing around trying to gain access. She gasped, opening her eyes to see Hiei still looking at her. He frowned at her distraction. "Focus."

She closed her eyes again, focussing on the strange sensation surrounding her. "I think I can feel you."

He scoffed. "Not enough, let me in onna."

A light blush rose to her cheeks at his words and she suddenly understood what Kurama had meant using the word 'intimate'. Thinking back to the steamy dream she'd had of her current teacher she suddenly froze up, what if she dropped her shields and he found out about it? Now that she was thinking about it he was sure to pick up on it.  
She frowned at herself. _Stop_ thinking about it damn it! Think about something else, _anything_ else...

She could still envision the flames that had surrounded her, his hands on her body, the amazing sensations coursing through her as he'd kissed her so possessively. She shook her head, nearly wailing in frustration. Oh, my, god, he's sitting right _there_! For goodness sake, get a grip girl! _Stop_ thinking about this, _stop, stop, stop_!

She was broken from her silent rant when Hiei commented on her obviously tense posture. "You're never going to drop the shield if you're wound tight like a drawstring. Worried I'll find something you don't want me to know?"

She could hear the smirk in his voice, as if he already knew what she was so worried about, and she couldn't resist opening her eyes to give him a questioning look.

"You honestly think I care about your sexual interests woman? Drop the damned shield already."

She gasped, eyes widening to saucers as her cheeks flushed a red so deep they could nearly rival his intense eye colour. The distraction and shock was so great that she appeared to drop her mental shield completely for a moment, suddenly feeling Hiei's presence flood her like a tidal wave. She gasped again at the sensation like a fish on dry land and within a few seconds instinctively forced him out and shielded her mind again.

"What, the, HELL.."

Hiei remained his stoic, unreadable self. "Like Kurama said it can feel invasive, you'll get used to that."

She glared at him. "Not _THAT_ , how the hell do you know about.. about.." She faltered slightly, unable to force the words out properly. "You know.." Grinding her teeth she refused to look him in the eye. "Gods I hate this, so _humiliating_."

He gave her an annoyed look, though she didn't see it with the way she was staring at her feet. "If you didn't want me to know _o_ _nna_ , then perhaps you should've thought more carefully before choosing the one person in the room with absolutely zero abilities to block out a mind reader, to reveal your dream to."

Her eyes shot back up to his. "You mean you've known all this time?!"

He nodded almost imperceptibly. "As I said, your sexual desires do not interest me woman. Now, focus."

She was sure her face was just about hot enough to cook an egg on, but she swallowed hard and tried to force herself to focus again. However embarassing this was, she didn't want to appear weak by calling off their training session. If Hiei was so stubbornly saying he didn't care, then she wasn't going to make any bigger of a deal out of it than she had to. Though she was probably going to vent her frustration on her poor pillow later that evening.

* * *

It took her the better portion of the morning before she finally got her cool back enough to allow her mental shield to drop again. Once she'd gotten the feeling for it from her earlier shock treatment, it wasn't as hard to recreate it. True to his word, Hiei didn't appear to be prying any more than he had to, in order to make her understand the basic concept of how to feel out another person's 'essence'.

Once this was established, Hiei invited her to try and connect with him, much like he'd done with her so far. It was trickier to do than allowing someone else to enter into your space, but once she managed, she felt an odd sense of calm steal over her. She smiled triumphantly as she opened her eyes to look at her teacher, who gave her a half hearted nod before forcefully breaking their connection. She frowned at the sudden loss of the comforting sensation she'd felt before.

"Good, we continue after lunch. Go eat."

With that, he left her, leaving her blinking at the empty space before her. She grumbled as she got up and set off for the village. "Could've at least offered to take me back, after dragging my ass all the way out here just to test if I could keep my stomach from turning over."

She grumpily kicked at a rock as she took her time walking back. She smelled the cooking meat long before she got there, only this time she wasn't surprised to see a massive boar roasting over an outdoor cooking fire. She'd found out her first night here that these boys had a hearty appetite.

"Hi Rei."

She looked up, recognizing Yukina's voice. The ice maiden smiled and waved her over. "I thought you might like a sandwich? Everyone's supposed to see to their own food, but I figured you hadn't arranged anything yet? I always make too many for Kazuma and the kids anyway."

Rei smiled and gratefully accepted one of the sandwiches with unidentifiable toppings. "Thanks, yeah, I'm not really sure how that works here. I don't suppose there's a supermarket around the corner?"

She grinned at Yukina who shook her head, her ever pleasant smile still on her face. "No, you're supposed to hunt for your food here. Though I'm sure they won't mind sharing their catch if you ask."

Rei shrugged. "They already gave me more than I could eat last night, I don't want to impose. And besides, when in Rome.." She grimaced slightly at the thought of having to go hunt some animal for food. "Though I can't say I'm looking forward to it."

Yukina gave her a knowing smile. "I could show you some of the edible plants around here if you like? And I have a fishing rod to spare if you'd prefer to fish?"

Rei sighed gratefully. "That would be wonderful, thanks."

Yukina nodded before looking at her curiously. "So how is your training going?"

The question left Rei slightly flustered, remembering her embarassing situation with Hiei earlier. "Ehm, fine I guess. Hiei's trying to teach me how to connect to someone's 'essence' so I can shield them even if they're on the move."

Yukina smiled brightly, her eyes nearly closing in the process. "That's great!"

Rei laughed. "Yeah, I guess if I can get the hang of it I'll be able to spare you a lot of work huh?"

Yukina laughed her light tingling laugh while Rei suddenly looked her over curiously. "You know..." She hesitated and Yukina gave her her full attention again. "I don't mean to be rude or anything but.. I thought Koorime couldn't survive birthing twins?"

Yukina turned solemn in an instant. "Yes, normally they do not."

Rei couldn't help but notice the sad look that ghosted over Yukina's face.

"I'm afraid it caused for quite a bit of stress and sadness during the pregnancy."

She smiled then, as she looked back up at Rei. "I almost didn't make it either, but the combined healing powers of myself and Botan, with Kazuma throwing in his own life energy, managed to pull me through."

Rei nodded. "Yes, I can imagine Kuwabara would've rather given up every last drop of his own life before letting you die."  
Yukina's eyes teared up a little as she nodded in response.

Attempting to steer the conversation in less emotional waters Rei tried to cheer her up. "So are they fire and ice as well? Like you and Hiei?"

Yukina's face instantly lit up as the talk turned to her children. "Yes, normally Koorime give birth to one female child, a Koorime like herself. But in the case of conception from a male they give birth to both her female offspring and a fire counterpart. I suspect that's the reason why Kogasu is so partial to his uncle, since they're both fire apparitions."

Rei grinned broadly. "Cool. I can totally imagine that little tyke setting the house on fire."

Yukina laughed. "He did actually, I'm afraid Genkai told us in no uncertain terms to find other accommodation after that. We moved to demon world since then, at least until the kids control their powers enough to blend in in the human realm."

Rei cocked her head as she pondered that. "So you intend for them to grow up in the Ningenkai?"

Yukina shrugged. "Kazuma and I both feel more at home there. But if our children can not adjust then we will stay here."

Rei nodded solemnly before looking around. "Where are they anyway?"

Yukina set about cleaning dishes in a large tub as she answered. "Oh, lunch finished a while ago. You came back kind of late actually. They've all gone back to the training grounds already."

Rei cocked a brow. "Alone? How old are they?"

Yukina shook her head in mild amusement. "No, Kazuma's with them and Keiko. And in human years they're almost two now."

Rei started choking on a piece of sandwich, taking a while before she managed to swallow it down. "Two?! Seriously? They seem like five or something."

Yukina smiled shyly. "Demons age differently from humans. We are quite aware of our surroundings from birth and grow up fast to be able to defend ourselves in the harsh world of the Makai. Once we reach a strong enough level we start aging slower until we sort of appear to stop aging altogether."

Rei raised her brows in amazement. "Wow, must be nice."

Yukina gave her a mysterious little stare. "Well, from what I've overheard, you're not entirely without demon influence either?"

Rei looked down at her crouched position by the soapy water and shrugged. "Meh, apparently my grandfather was a demon. But I haven't noticed anything weird about myself or whatever. Maybe if I die I can come back as a demon like Yusuke did." She laughed without humour. "Though I can't say I'm willingly going to put that theory to the test."

Yukina nodded as she continued the dishes, making Rei stuff the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and kneel down next to her after grabbing a dishrag.

"Do you know anything about this grandfather then? What kind of apparition he was?"

Rei shrugged as she piled up plates after drying them quickly. "Nope, not a thing. Probably never will. I'm afraid my mother isn't really in any position to give me any info either, even if she knew anything. I believe the guy kind of did a 'wham bam thank you ma'am' sort of thing to my grandmother to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if Genkai knows more about it than me."

Yukina looked her over curiously. But before she could ask anything more they were interrupted by Hiei yanking Rei to her feet abruptly, making her nearly drop the plate she was drying.

"Hey!" She glared at him over her shoulder, though he just glared equally back down at her.

"When I told you to go eat I didn't mean for you to take two bloody hours woman. Get back to work."

She huffed as she sat the plate and dishrag back down, thanked Yukina for the food and turned her back on Hiei before walking into the surrounding woods. He could be so annoyingly rude sometimes.

After having entered the forest quite a distance she glared over her shoulder, only to realize her teacher wasn't there. Looking around in surprise she yelped when a blur suddenly passed by her and she felt a slight sting on her arm. Looking down she saw a trickle of blood running from a superficial cut. Growling she yelled to the area at large. "Hey, what's the big idea?!"

As she heard the rustle of fast paced movement she decided to shield herself, just in case her teacher was going to attack her out of nowhere again. Suddenly there he was and she shrieked slightly before his fist connected with her shield, bringing her to her knees and effectively forcing the shield out of existence before he vanished from her sight again.

She breathed heavily as she looked around, her heart rate speeding up as she felt like a hunted animal, and this time, not in a good way.

Forcing herself off the ground she pulled up her shield again, only to be immediately knocked down once again by Hiei. She felt drained and shaky, two of Hiei's hits and she was reduced to a vulnerable mess. Gritting her teeth she forced herself back to her feet. "What are you trying to prove Hiei?! Damn you, you know I can't take hits like that! What's your point?!"

She glared at him when he blurred into existence in front of her. "My _point_ , onna, is that you're inefficient. You're no better than that oaf Kuwabara."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Fine, you're supposed to be my teacher, oh mighty one.. so _teach_."

He stepped closer to her, looking down his nose at her as he surveyed her heavy breathing while she glared up at him defiantly. "You can see your enemy's intent beforehand, I've seen you react too quickly during the tournament for it to be mere sight."

She nodded slowly. "Normally I can somewhat yeah, but it's not something I can control and you're too fast for it to work I guess."

He seemed to ponder this a moment. "Your enemy won't adjust his speed or strength to make things easier on you."

She shrugged as her breathing slowly evened out again. "I guess so, but like I said I don't really know how it works or anything, maybe I'm just too stressed out around you." She narrowed her eyes at him and resisted the urge to stick her tongue out.

He huffed, undoubtedly not impressed with her amateurism. "I will attack you slowly this time, but instead of shielding yourself like you don't know what you're doing, listen to your instincts and focus your energy on the exact location where the attack will hit. You're spreading your strength to be prepared for anything, but it makes you weak."

She blinked in surprise as Hiei once again vanished from her sight. Taking her task seriously, she swerved out her senses and tried to relax. Sure enough, she felt exactly what would happen and before Hiei's hit could land she shielded that side of herself with a half shield. It quivered slightly under the pressure, but didn't vanish immediately. She smiled brightly. "Awesome!"

Hiei scoffed. "Not good enough, it need only be the size of my fist woman, concentrate. The more energy you assemble in a smaller concentration the stronger it will be." He stepped back, not bothering to vanish from her sight this time. "Now, again!"

* * *

They remained at it until deep into the night, by the time they made it back Rei didn't even have enough energy left to eat. She dragged herself up to her small quarters and passed out on the bed.

When morning came she groaned, squeezing her eyes against the stark light that fell into her room through her glass- and curtainless window.

She tried to move, only to discover her body felt like lead. Eyes widening she tested her limbs. They didn't feel sore like a muscle ache, more like completely drained of energy, the epitome of 'dead weight'.

Last night she'd tried so hard to concentrate all her energy into smaller and smaller shields, only to have each of them destroyed again by Hiei's unwavering assault.

She supposed in all her training, she'd never actually spent this much of her spirit energy. Kameki and Genkai had only ever focussed on increasing the amount of spirit energy she had, and the tournament had never proven challenging enough to actually destroy her shield. Furiuko didn't count, since in her case the shield hadn't worked in the first place.

Her eyes darted all over the place when a mild panic started to take hold because she still couldn't move even an inch. Noticing Jack curled up on the windowsill soaking up rays of early sunlight she tried to speak. "Jack.."  
Her voice sounded cracked and she felt her heart speed up. "Jack!"  
The tiny dragon grumbled slightly, twisting his tail in tiny jerks before relaxing again and continuing his peaceful slumber.  
Rei cursed under her breath. "JACK!"

Startled, he woke and lost his balance, falling from the window sill and landing on the floor with a lood 'thunk'. "What?!"  
He gave her a very annoyed glare as he made his way over to her bedside.

"I can't move."

He blinked stupidly, obviously not awake enough yet to properly understand what she meant, before a sly smirk spread over his reptillian features. "The fire demon worked you good huh?"

She rolled her eyes at his double meaning. "Oh, give me a break you perverted dragon, I'm not kidding, I can't move a muscle damn it."

He huffed, before making his way to the door. "Yeah, yeah, I'll go get your healer friend."

* * *

Yukina came hurrying through the door after what felt like an eternity. "Are you alright Rei?"

Rei turned her head in the direction of the doorway. "I'm not sure exactly, I can't seem to move."

Yukina sat down next to her on the bed and felt Rei's arm muscles before shaking her head. "I should've known my brother would take it too far."

She sighed. "I'm afraid I can't heal your spirit energy, you'll have to regain it with time. Did you eat last night?"

Rei guiltily shook her head, just as Keiko joined them in her room. "Hey, what's up?"

Yukina turned to the brunette. "Rei's drained all of her energy, she'll need some hearty food. I'll go get her some broth if you'd be so kind as to keep her company?"

Keiko smiled. "Sure. We haven't had a chance to catch up yet anyway."

Taking the ice apparition's place on the bed Keiko waited for Yukina to leave before turning to Rei. "So..."

Rei didn't miss the twinkle in Keiko's eyes. "How are things progressing?"

Narrowing her eyes slightly, she decided to ignore the insinuation behind that question. "As you can see, I'm training, we can only hope it'll be enough."

Keiko gave her a look that clearly said that wasn't what she'd meant, but decided to leave it be. She played casually with the fringe of the sheets before speaking again. "You know, I think the guys like you. They're still unsure why you're so secretive and all, but.. you're alright."

Keiko smiled at her, making Rei smile back hesitantly. "Thanks.."

She looked Keiko over curiously. "So, Yusuke's alright with you being here? In the Makai?"

Keiko snorted. " _Yusuke_ , doesn't get to tell me what I can and can't do. I'm a big girl and I'm tired of waiting around for him everytime he comes here. So, since he claimed to want to be part of my life, and has started making ramen with my dad and everything. I decided that I should also be a part of his, whether he likes it or not."

She sighed while looking out the window. "Though I'll admit I still feel kind of out of place here, and I hate to have to watch him get all bloodied up when he fights." She turned large brown eyes full of emotion to Rei, who was slightly taken aback by it. "But it's part of who he is and, I decided long ago that he's who I want to be with."

She sniffed. "Damn, sorry. I didn't mean to turn my answer into a sobstory."

Rei smiled and managed to shake her head with some difficulty. "No way, I think it's beautiful. Give and take, it's how it should be right?"

She hesitated a moment before asking a question she'd been wondering about since the tournament. "You know, every one of you has good reason to be suspicious of me, but somehow you seemed to like me from the start."

Keiko grinned. "Yeah, the connection you can feel with someone when you share one of their most embarassing moments and all that you know."

Rei flushed a light pink and looked away. "I told you the herb was defective."

She didn't sound overly convinced and Keiko's grin only grew wider. "Sure, sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself to be able sleep at night."

Keiko winked at Rei's glare, just as Yukina walked back in with an enormous bowl of something steamy. Giving Rei a stern look Yukina sat down on her other side. "Now then, you're going to eat every last bite."

Rei grinned.

"Yes ma'am."


	11. Resolution

**Howdy! Winter Solstice and a new chapter for some reading delight in the dark of night.  
Okay I don't know where that came from...**

 **Anywayyyy, I couldn't help but notice.. that my previous chapter made me lose a fav and follow.**  
 **Now of course, there's nothing wrong with this, but..but..but.. I would really very extremely much appreciate those who decide to quit on this story to either leave me a review or pm me about what made you lose interest!**

 **Because as much as I love good reviews (don't we all?) it's the negatives that really help me see how the writing comes across to others.**

 **I know you can't (and I don't intend to) please everyone, but I can only see my writing from my own narrow tunnel vision of read, reread, reread again and thus no longer see the stuff that makes it potentially bad.**

 **I may not even agree with why someone decides the story's not for them, it can be very personal after all, but it's still good to know!**  
 **It doesn't have to be a lengthy detailed review, it could just be that you find the story progresses too slowly, or the protagonist annoys you for w.e. reason or I dunno.. but please don't be afraid to critisize! I respect other's opinions and it can potentially help me see things I would otherwise completely overlook.**

 **So, without further ado, chapter 11! And as we all know, I Yu Yu Hakusho own do NOT.. . ehm?**

* * *

Food definitely helped. Though she dragged herself out of bed a lot sooner than her new nurses would've liked.  
She had to admit that, after so long of being drilled by different teachers, it was nice to be so fussed over. But she'd be damned if she faltered now that she'd finally made it into the team, they needed her to be strong and she needed to prove that she deserved to be here.

She'd wondered why Hiei hadn't shown up to drag her off to train in the morning, but then again, he probably already knew that she'd been too floored to do anything. And he did still have training of his own to do.

Sure enough, once she made it to the training grounds, she was greeted by a massive brawl in progress. She practically sweatdropped at the sight of several bodies pummeling each other into the dust.

"Good afternoon."

She turned to see Shishi standing next to her, wind casually playing with his violet locks as he stared out over the scene before them as if he was viewing the most breathtaking of sunsets. She shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah, hi."

He slowly turned his pink eyes towards her, and looked her over from head to foot. His perusal made her feel like a slouch, she hadn't bothered bathing and was wearing a loose pair of shorts and a tank top with her hair in a messed up ponytail. She didn't figure it made sense to bother with her appearance around here, but this guy had a way of making her feel seriously underdressed.

"I see you've been quite thoroughly drained of energy."

She nodded, still a little uncomfortable under his ever staring gaze.

"Yeah, it's quite tough keeping pace with a teacher that's so much stronger than you are."

Shishi shrugged. "It's the best way to improve, though I'd be happy to share some meditative techniques if you wish."

She smiled. "Thanks, but, I think I have my hands full at the moment."

When he suddenly reached a hand out towards her she took an instinctive step back, but he smiled in an overly charming kind of way as he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you."

Despite his words, he took a step towards her, making her look up in question. She turned to look at the fighting again when she heard Yusuke yell loudly. "You wanna repeat that to my face you big lug!"

She snickered, only to turn back to her awkward situation with Shishi when he took another casual step closer. What the hell was his deal?

She nearly sighed in relief when the arrival of Hiei made Shishi halt in his tracks. The fire apparition was once again shirtless and covered in dust and sweat. He'd definitely taken the time to train while she was lying about in a pile of jelly limbs.

He looked her over with his usual harsh and unreadable expression, completely ignoring Shishi.

"You're up sooner than I thought." The tone of his voice didn't give anything away as to whether that was a good or bad thing, but she was kind of getting used to Hiei's stand offish attitude. He turned around. "Let's go then." With that he vanished, making her groan when she figured he wanted her to follow. She'd barely had enough energy to drag herself down here in the first place.

She turned an apologetic smile to Shishi before taking a deep breath and jogging after him. In her current state, a jog really was all that she could manage.

* * *

Due to her lack in energy, they focussed on her learning to connect to another's essence for the next two days. To her utter enjoyment she improved quite rapidly. And, though she had the feeling Hiei didn't feel overly comfortably with it, she loved trying to connect to him. She couldn't read his mind or anything, she supposed that was a Jagan only speciality, but being able to feel and surround herself with his warmth in such a way felt, reassuring somehow.

She soon learned however, that, unless the individual she wanted to connect to specifically allowed it, she had no chance of doing so by simply trying to feel around them with her subconscious. So whenever she tried to casually 'test' her prowess at it during meal times or any other time outside of training, all she ever received was a burning glare from her teacher.

His attitude really grew on her though, and she never felt hurt by it. If anything it only made her want to spend more time with him, trying to draw out new reactions. Which usually ended up in another glare or him simply vanishing and leaving her to whatever she was doing. Maybe it was because she knew his story and knew that, despite his attitude, he'd never really dropped out on those he cared about. Or maybe she kind of agreed with Yusuke who'd mentioned during the Sensui thing that Hiei was 'so full of crap'. Either way, she was never scared of approaching him, like she suppossed he wanted her to be.

When training turned back to her energy use, she worked her hardest and managed to drain herself nearly everytime because she refused to call it quits. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was reprimanding herself for pushing so hard just to impress a guy, but she stubbornly ignored that little voice of reason.

Everytime she recovered, her energy appeared stronger and she lasted longer before it comepletely depleted. Trusting her instincts enough to shield only the part of her body that was about to be attacked took much more work however, and by the time Hiei deemed her ready to start training with the others, another month had passed. This left them only one more month to get her to settle into 'team spirit mode' and learn how to work together with each of them individually.

She'd decided to properly bathe that morning in a nearby lake she'd come across at the beginning of her stay. Feeling utterly refreshed from the cool water and happy to wear clean clothes again she combed her fingers through her wet hair as she made her way over to the training grounds. She even hummed slightly, wondering excitedly who she'd been teamed up with and who they'd be training against.

She smiled and waved when she noticed Kurama, who gently inclined his head in greeting.

"You're in an awfully good mood today."

Grinning broadly she tied up her clumsily combed hair. "Yep, I'm finally going to start the real deal today."

They fell into step together while walking to the ravines where they trained. Kurama meanwhile smiling at her enthusiasm while she eyed him suspiciously. "Do you know who's going to be up against who?"

Kurama shook his head. "I'm afraid not, when we train in teams we go through a selection, as they'll do during the tournament as well. Meaning it will be random every time."

Her face fell at that information. "So.. I may not even get to fight today?"

He chuckled lightly at her crestfallen reaction. "I'm sure we're all very curious to see what you can do. We'll probably stick to selecting only your partner randomly to be able to give you a chance at proper training."

She nodded, her smile firmly back in place.

Once they reached the grounds however, her smile wavered and she looked on curiously as she noticed Hiei and Mukuro sitting close to one another at the forest's edge. They appeared to be deep in conversation and suddenly her weeks of training with him felt hollow in comparison. She realized they'd never truly 'talked' together of anything, only trained with the occassional 'command' thrown in.

She shook her head, what did she care anyway? She was here to fight damn it.

Resolutely setting her shoulders, she followed Kurama to the edge of the cliffs where most were already waiting. Yusuke was holding two kinds of boxes with what appeared to be small pieces of paper inside. She looked at them curiously just as he yelled over to a slow to arrive Suzuka and Rinku. "Come on guys, we haven't got all day, let's get this party started!"

She noticed Keiko roll her eyes at Yusuke's eagerness while sitting down with the twins and Yukina on a spread out kind of picnic blanket. She smiled at Rei when she caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up, which kind of made Rei feel like she was in kindergarten and about to go for her first ever test.

Yusuke cleared his throat. "Okay guys, same as usual. We draw lots from this one for our opponents and this one." He held up the opposite box. "For the home team. Though today we'll draw one lot only since our new rookie here needs to train." He grinned at her before setting down the boxes on a raised rocky surface.

He cracked his knuckles thoroughly just as Hiei and Mukuro joined them at a casual walk. She couldn't help but look up at them while Yusuke's hand disappeared into one of the boxes and her heart froze when she saw the gem hanging around Mukuro's neck. She quickly looked away, trying to ignore the desolate feelings flooding through her. She took another quick peek before returning her eyes to the team selection. That was _definitely_ a hiruseki stone and she was willing to bet it _wasn't_ Yukina's.

She could slap herself, why was she reacting like this? Hiei never showed her the slightest indication that he was interested in her, she had no claim on him nor did she even want to. Did she? She groaned inwardly, remembering the effects Kurama's herb had had on her, then how much she'd enjoyed spending time with him over these past few weeks and now _this_. This obvious reaction of hurt and, dare she say, jealousy.

Oh, my, god, she could cry for all the good it'd do her. She didn't need to complicate her situation any further by falling for one of her team mates.

"Yo! Earth to midget, can we get started please?!"

She blinked as she looked up into Yusuke's impatient face. "I'm sorry we bore you squirt but there's work to do."

She smiled awkwardly, biting her lip when she realized she'd lost focus and hadn't heard who the teams were going to be.

"Sorry, I'm ready."

Yusuke nodded. "Good, let's go then. We're training for anything, so no such thing as a ring or a ten second count around here. If you wanna quit just yell 'give' but it does mean you leave your team mate hangin'."

He glowered to Kuwabara for a moment who appeared to be very interested in some bird flying overhead just then.

"Besides that, we're all friends here, so try not to kill anyone." He winked at her before stepping up and shoving her over to the cliff's edge.

She turned her head to look at him. "Ehm, who's my team mate?"

Yusuke gave her an exasperated look. "You're with Kurama, facing off against Touya and Rinku."

She swallowed nervously and Yusuke gave her a reassuring pat on the back. Though it could be seen as more of a slap since the force of it nearly made her fall over. "Don't worry squirt, Kurama's not gonna let things get out of hand. You'll do fine."

With that he pushed her over the edge and she yelled as she plummeted down to the ground, only barely scraping herself together to create her flexible shield in time and bounce awkwardly before landing on the ground next to Rinku, who looked her over with renewed interest.

He held out his hand and pulled her up, looking up at her a little strangely. "You know, I kinda hoped I wouldn't be the smallest anymore, what with you joining us."

She smiled apologetically at him and shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint. If it helps, I don't think size matters."

He grinned happily just as she heard Yusuke burst out laughing above them, only then realizing her comment could be taken several ways. She glared up at him before taking her place next to Kurama.

"Okay so, Hiei taught me to connect to my team mate through his essence." She smiled awkwardly. "But then, you knew that."

Kurama nodded reassuringly. "Ready when you are."

Ignoring the nerves that started to rear their nasty head, she focussed out her energy and tried to feel out Kurama, who quite openly invited her in. Connecting to him was easier than she'd thought and she smiled when she felt the tranquility that was his essence.

"Good, now do you think you can shield me from that vantage point up there?" Kurama indicated a spire some ways from where they stood and she nodded. "I think so."

Without warning he picked her up and jumped over several rocks before elegantly landing on top of the spire. "I'd like you to stay out of harm's way for now, just to see if you can indeed keep shielding me with two attackers."

She nodded excitedly before he jumped back down. Squeezing her hands into fists in determination, she kept her focus on Kurama, she would do her damnedest to make him invincible in this fight.

Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply, slowly letting the breath escape through her mouth as Yusuke started yelling over the wind. "Ready?! GO!"

Relaxing, she allowed her instincts to take over, her corporeal form practically becoming numb as her mind remained entwined with Kurama's. And like an infrared display, she saw and felt the presence of each fighter, feeling their attacks before they came and shielding every one of them with the smallest amount of energy required to keep from draining herself.

Exhilaration soon took over when she realized it was working better than she'd hoped and Kurama's opponents started fighting more ferociously in their annoyance at not being able to land a single hit.

She could hear rocks exploding and tree trunks cracking, but she refused to open her eyes for fear of losing focus.

Even Touya's shards of winter were no match this time, for she shielded every individual bullet just like Hiei had taught her to.

The combination of their attacks being rendered useless and Kurama's ample knowledge of his opponents, decided the match within the hour and when Yusuke declared Kurama and Rei the winner she opened her eyes and cheered in excitement. "YES!"

Kurama gave her an encouraging smile as he stopped by to pick her up and carried her back upto the cliff edge where their spectators were waiting. "Very well done. I must say I didn't expect you to be quite so good just yet."

She smiled broadly at the compliment. "Neither did I! Their attacks didn't exhaust my energy nearly as much as I thought they would."

He gave her a knowing smile before explaining. "Hiei trained you well, and your own energy has increased greatly this past month. But in connecting to me you also managed to intertwine some of my own energy into yours, which caused for some interesting effects."

She frowned. "Really? How?"

Kurama shrugged. "Who knows, but it seems you're very adept at joining with another on a subconscious level. The shields you formed around me weren't your signature pink colouring either. They seemed a combination of the both of us." He thought for a moment. "I suppose that is why their attacks didn't overly exhaust you this time."

She grinned, just as Yusuke came over to pull her into a headlock again. "Well done squirt! We'll make you into an asset yet."

She craned her neck awkwardly to smirk up at him.

"You up for another round?"

* * *

They kept training her for nearly the whole day, by the end of which, she was exhausted, but she'd never had so much fun in her life.  
After her second match once again being with Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara tried all kinds of tricks to rig the match up system so they could have a go with her. Though in Kuwabara's case, she'd been forced to fight as well, since he couldn't take on two S classes on his own even with her shields, which led to the both of them having received several decent bruises.

"We just gotta work on you being able to shield two people at once! But hey, even if we don't get there before the tournament, you're already a real good team member." She smiled gratefully at Kuwabara, who was bleeding profusely from his nose while reassuring her.

They walked back together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Not wanting to let her mind dwell on the Hiei and Mukuro thing again she broke their companionable silence after a few moments. "So.. I heard you entered the Makai tournament last time?"

Kuwabara grinned a lopsided grin, misshapen by his slowly swelling face. "Yeah.. entering again next year too."

"Heh, really? Why would you want to rule over all of demon world?"

Kuwabara shrugged. "I think it might be good you know.. mellow them out towards humans a bit. They might wanna eat us less if they knew us better." He scratched the back of his head. "Though even I gotta admit I didn't think I'd actually win or nothin'."

His easy going grin made her smile back at him, before she casually asked. "So, who'd you lose to?"

Kuwabara laughed. "The shrimp beat me somethin' good, I think he was honestly tryin' to rip me a new one." He seemed to think for a while before he noticed her questioning gaze. "Oh this was while Yukina was still pregnant." He pulled a face that clearly showed he didn't like remembering this particular period so much. "I'm afraid he wasn't very happy with the news.. Though I gotta admit." He looked up at their surroundings again. "If I'd a known the shrimp was Yukina's long lost brother, I mighta thought twice about entering the darned tournament." He muttered a bit under his breath as he continued. "I still think he bribed the committee to make sure he'd get a crack at me."

Rei laughed. "Well at least he didn't kill you."

Kuwabara beamed, his eyes taking on a dreamy quality. "No, my dear sweet lovely Yukina would've frozen him solid if he'd tried!"

Rei just shook her head at his enthusiasm when speaking of his girl, but she was grateful for the distraction as he started telling her about how they'd met and how he'd finally convinced her he loved her.

By the time they entered their glorified camp he was telling stories about the twins and how, when they were newborns, he'd walked around with a constant cold due to all the temperature changes in their environment.

She could tell by his enthusiasm that he really loved his family more than anything, making some of his abundant happiness rub off on her and leaving a warm smile on her face.

When he noticed them, Yusuke waved them over. "Come on squirt! Dinner's on us tonight. Keiko got us some ingredients from human world to make a killer ramen."

Relieved to hear she'd finally be eating some recognizable food, Rei happily jogged over and smelled at the cooking pots. "Ohhh, that smells wonderful!" She jumped slightly when Jack suddenly landed on her shoulder and sniffed the food as well.

"Tsk, I'd rather have fresh meat."

Rei rolled her eyes, but smiled at her little friend nonetheless. "You _always_ eat raw meat. Maybe you should broaden your horizons." He gave her a look as though she'd just told him he was wearing a dolly dress, making her laugh.

Her laugh died abruptly though when she heard a laugh from across the fire that she'd never heard before. Sure enough her eyes landed on Hiei, once again conversing with Mukuro, who seemed to be smiling a little secretive smile while Hiei was actually laughing whole heartedly at something she'd said.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Rei turned from the scene and looked at the others who appeared to be playing some kind of card game. Jack looked her over curiously and then started sniffing her neck, making her recoil. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?"

He lazily let himself lie over her shoulder like a dead weight, his paws and tail dangling down as he gave her a look that said she was in serious trouble. "Do we have an eansy weansy crush on a certain fire demon?"

She glared at him, before looking around if anyone had overheard. Luckily, everyone was too busy and he hadn't spoken too loud. Quickly making her way to a more private area she plucked him off her shoulder and set him down on top of a barrel. "First off, that's none of your business and secondly, why the hell were you sniffing me to find that out?"

He quirked a lazy brow at her. "So you're not denying it?"

She sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. "I don't know! Those two together makes me uncomfortable.. and I guess.. a little envious.. so yeah maybe I do have feelings for him, but so what?! It doesn't change anything. We're here on business, that's it. Strictly business."

He yawned quite deliberately at her lengthy attempt at reasoning away her feelings. "Well, with that attitude you're never going to conquer a fire elemental anyway, so I guess it's for the best."

She frowned at him, but decided it was probably better not to ask him what he meant. Crossing her arms she glared down at him. "Why were you sniffing me?"

Her eyes turned round in horror when he confirmed her suspicions. "Being interested in someone has an effect on your scent witch, it's an animalistic thing, your body's trying to attract him with your smell."

She clasped her hands in front of her mouth. "Oh. My. God. No way, no way, no way. You mean everyone's going to know?"

He rolled his eyes at her anxiety. "Relax, I only know the difference because we've been hanging out for nearly a year already, I know your regular scent as well as my own by now."

He hopped back down onto the ground and started back towards the others.

"Let me know if you change your mind about getting in his pants witch! I know how to entice a creature born of fire after all." He winked at her, narrowly avoiding a swipe she made for him and laughing as he darted off.

* * *

It was late, and she knew she should be sleeping and gathering her strength for another training day. But instead she lay there staring out the window, looking at the multi coloured stars that lay strewn on the blackest sky she'd ever seen. Jack was snoring loudly, occassionally making twitchy movements with one of his paws.

He had kind of made her feel like she was taking the wrong approach, trying to stuff her feelings in a corner and continuing to focus on what she was actually here for. Somewhere in the back of her mind that tiny voice seemed to be agreeing with him.

She sighed and rolled over onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut and willing sleep to come.  
Then she remembered her first thoughts when she'd discovered she was dead.. "I only ever focussed on my fighting and the subsequent tournaments I wanted to win..." She mumbled it to herself, rolling back over to lie flat on her back and stare up at the ceiling.

It was true she'd never really done anything to actually _enjoy_ life.. sure she enjoyed fighting and participating in tournaments, but she'd never really _lived_. And it had been her first regret upon realizing she would no longer get a chance to.

But now.. she did have a chance to. She grumbled in annoyance and kicked at the sheets. Though of course it'd be her rotten luck to fall for someone who was undoubtedly taken and if he wasn't, why the hell would he ever become interested in _her_?

She lifted up her arms and slapped both hands to her cheeks. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!"

Jack grumbled a little in his sleep at the noise she made, making her eyes swerve in his direction. Her face set in newfound determination. The damned dragon was right, so _what_ if he wasn't interested? Life's too short not to take any chances, she'd be damned if she died again and realized she still had regrets. This time, she was going to make the most of it! And if that meant finding a way into Hiei's frozen heart then by damned she'd work her hardest to do it!

She frowned slightly at herself. But how? She couldn't very well walk up to him and ask to be his girl, they weren't in primary school for goodness sake and he'd probably think she was on some drug or other.

Then there was the problem of Mukuro, she couldn't deny those two were awfully close, but considering their shared history and somewhat similar pasts it wasn't very surprising.

The fact that he'd given his Hiruseki stone to her made her uneasy though, it could just be a symbol of deep respect and trust, but it could also be more than that. If _her_ mother had shed a tear when giving birth to her and it had solidified into a gemstone which would have been her only link to her heritage for her entire life... it'd be a damned precious object wouldn't it? Who better to give that to than the one you intended to spend your life with?

She groaned and smacked her pillow into a more comfortable shape before huffing and lying down again. First, she needed to find out how serious those two were. If they were an item, she'd back off, move on and if she survived this madness in the Makai, maybe she'd meet a nice human guy at some point in her life. But, if they were not together that way, well, she had no experience at seducing men, she would definitely need pointers on how to seduce a demon.

Finally able to relax after having come to a decision, she soon managed to fall into a much needed, restless, slumber.


	12. Make me Over

The next morning, she wasn't surprised to find Jack had left already. Being in the Makai appeared to be making the little dragon more active and he tended to be off finding breakfast pretty early. This particular morning, however, she wasn't very happy about it. Now that she'd made her choice she wanted to start working on it, she had to admit that the combination of going into such (for her) uncharted territory and the rather high probability of rejection, made her as nervous as a little girl about to go confess to her first ever crush.

And she distinctly remembered that hadn't gone very well.

She sighed as she swung her legs over the edge into a sitting position on the bed, leaning her elbows on her legs and dragging her hands through her sleep tousled hair. She grimaced when her fingers caught in some tangles.

She felt groggy and battered, despite having been healed by Yukina the previous evening. She knew when she felt like this she was going to have trouble staying on track. Jumping to her feet she resolutely walked over to the bucket of water she'd taken to placing in her room each night and threw off her PJ's before starting to wash with a thin bar of soap.

She would have taken showergel and what not, but Genkai had told her to travel light and prevent littering. Which had been rather easy for her to say, as the old woman had returned to the comfort of her temple after only one night.

Though she had to admit, the rough kind of lifestyle here was growing on her and she didn't miss the cold winter weather from the human world one bit. She'd even become a pretty adept fisherman, though she still royally sucked at cooking over an open fire.

Quickly dressing in some comfortable clothes and making her bed had her finished within five minutes, and she walked over to the hole that was her window hoping to catch a glimpse of her dragon friend.

Not surprisingly, he wasn't anywhere in sight. She bit her lip as she grabbed a brush and started to untangle her hair with it. Jack wouldn't be able to help her with the Mukuro thing anyway, she should probably focus on that first, before she started to worry about how to win the heart of the most stubborn loner in all the worlds.

Now she just had to figure out how to go about finding out what their relationship was. She could ask one of them directly.. But, if she asked Hiei, he'd know her intentions, and that'd be no better than the awkwardly confessing to your crush thing, which she was certain wouldn't be the way into Hiei's rather unsympathetic heart. He wasn't the kind of sap that would grant her the benefit of the doubt and give her a chance because she'd mustered up the courage to confess to his face.

Setting the brush down and binding her hair up in a messy bun she head out of her room and started down the endless stairs of doom, as she'd come to call them. Then, there was Mukuro, she supposed she could ask her... Keeping things straight between them and not doing anything behind each other's back was always a preferred method in her opinion. But, if those two _were_ together, then she had no idea how Mukuro would react. They hadn't spoken two words to each other and for all she knew, demons might get very territorial when it came to their 'other halves'. She couldn't say she was looking forward to a bitch fight with one of the previous overlords of demon world.

The other side to that coin was that demons valued strength and courage, and if she tried to obtain her information through sneaking and spying, then she definitely didn't exhibit either of those qualities. Plus they still had this tournament to worry about, if Mukuro killed her now they'd need to find another fighter all over again, and time was running short. So she was pretty certain the demoness wouldn't kill her, yet anyway.

Also, regardless if those two were an item or not, she'd have to deal with Mukuro eventually. Those two were far too close, even if it was only friendship, Mukuro's opinion would definitely carry some weight in this. Gritting her teeth she made her choice, she'd confront the demoness, for better or worse. She reckoned it's what any self respecting demon would do.

Knowing her luck, this was probably going to end up becoming a very elaborate suicide attempt, but hey, no pain no gain!

Finally coming out into the sunlight again, she scanned her surroundings. Several demons were walking around carrying supplies and repairing some of the housing and such, but she saw no sign of a familiar face yet, let alone Mukuro herself.

Sighing, she decided to take a look around.

"Looking for someone?" She nearly jumped out of her skin before turning around and throwing a pointed glare at Kurama who walked out of the building she'd just exited.

He smiled casually, as if he hadn't just made her freak out on purpose. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Well, I'd say no, but knowing you, you'd know I was lying anyway. So yeah, I am."

He tilted his head ever so slightly, obviously curious what she was up to. "I might be able to point you in the right direction."

She pressed her lips together, assessing her options. She'd definitely give a penny for the fox's thoughts, he always seemed to be up to something, the sneaky bastard.

She sighed and released her arms to set her hand on her hip. He'd probably find out anyway, this guy had a knack for knowing every damn thing. "I'm looking for Mukuro."

This time, a look of genuine surprise crossed over his fine features, though she could immediately see the glint of calculation shifting gears behind his green eyes.

"She can be rather hard to track if she doesn't want to be found. I suppose you won't let me know what you need to find her for?"

Rei narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm afraid that's private."

He shrugged, his face forever a mask of kindness. "Your best bet is by the lake I reckon, she likes her solitude, much like Hiei."

The final comment felt like a smooth stab to the heart, but she ignored it. She wasn't going to mope and feel sorry for herself before she'd confirmed her suspicions. Nodding she set off in that direction, leaving a curiously assessing Kurama behind her.

* * *

Once at the lake, she started walking aimlessly. Naturally, Mukuro wasn't the type to sit idyllically by the water's edge, clearly visible to all the world. She was probably more the type to chill somewhere out of sight, if she was even here that is.

Doubt creeping in, she swallowed nervously. Should she call out? Even if she did, could she just call her by her name? Or was she supposed to add a 'Lord' to it?

Trying a different tactic, she swerved out her energy, hoping to pick up on something other than squirrels in the general vicinity.

When that didn't work she sighed. It had been a long shot anyway, someone like Mukuro was obviously adept at keeping her energy hidden. Gritting her teeth she muttered to herself. "Right.. so, if I was Mukuro, where would I be..?"

"Right here I think."

She started for the second time that day and turned around so fast her hair sagged out of its bun slightly.

Quickly pulling the ends of her hair to try and push the elastic higher up again, she looked at the imposing demoness in front of her.

The demoness appeared to be very much at ease and very confident. Patiently letting the small human female look her over, undoubtedly doing the same in return, though it was much harder to tell with only half her face visible.

When Rei seemed to have lost her tongue Mukuro spoke again. "You were looking for me?"

Her voice was strong and imposing, a testament to her years as a firm ruler. Absolutely nothing about this woman gave away her thoughts, and her relaxed posture felt oddly misleading.

Swallowing away the nervous lump that started forming in her throat, Rei looked up at the impressive demoness, once again noticing the glimmer of the Hiruseki stone around her neck, reminding her of her reason for seeking the woman out.

"Yes."

The croak in her voice made her stop, clear her throat and start again.

"Yes, I was. I have something I would like to ask you, if that's alright?"

Mukuro nodded once, a simple curt nod. As if she was curious enough to allow the little human to ask her question, but not so intruiged as to be patient enough to let this 'audience' last longer than it had to.

Though, she might just be reading too much into this, but there was no denying that this former lord of the Makai made her nervous.

Suddenly not knowing how to ask her question without being rude, she frowned to herself. She hadn't realized this particular topic would be sort of a private thing to ask about.

Mukuro didn't speak, but something about the general atmosphere told Rei that she wanted her to spit it out already.

Squaring her shoulders, she decided she couldn't back out now and she looked Mukuro directly in the eyes as she spoke again.

"I don't mean to be rude, but for the sake of clarity I'm going to be so anyway. I'd like to know what exactly your relationship with Hiei is."

After a moment's consideration she added as an afterthought. "Please."

Mukuro slowly looked her over, seeming a little bored yet calculative at the same time. "Why?"

Rei blushed slightly, losing her cool when she realized she was going to have to voice her feelings out loud for the first time. Unfortunately this made her next comment gush out in a way remarkably similar to word vomit.

"I'm interested in him and, though I realize my chances are slim, I'd like to pursue him. But I noticed you and him are very close and I see you two together a lot ever since you came here to join us. And then I noticed you were wearing his Hiruseki stone and everything, so I kind of feared you two might already be like.. ehm.. involved?"

Mukuro remained as unreadable as a blank board, taking her leisure time before responding. "What if we were?"

Rei's eyes widened and she turned back to look at Mukuro again, not even having realized that she'd averted her eyes during her somewhat embarassing little speech.

She hesitated before answering. "Oh, well, then I know there's no use pursuing him.. It's why I came to ask."

She smiled awkwardly, trying to cover up the hurt she felt. "Thank you."

She bowed slightly to her, unable to keep from deferring to her insanely strong presence, before turning to walk back.

"I didn't say we were."

Rei threw a questioning look over her shoulder, a new hope blossoming in her chest.  
Mukuro still looked her over from head to foot, a glint of interest in her visible eye, though there was no way to tell if this was positive or negative.

Getting a bit frustrated with having her hopes crushed and then raised again, she turned back around.

"Look, I came to ask you, because I prefer things to be open on the table. If you two are involved, or nearing any such thing, then I don't want to get between that. I didn't come here for your blessing, approval, help or any such thing. I just came to clear things up so I'm positive I came to the right conclusions and I can try to let this go."

The tiniest of smirks appeared at the lifting of Mukuro's mouth's corner. "What conclusion was that?"

Rei narrowed her eyes a little, feeling like Mukuro was playing with her like a cat with a mouse. She was no less impressed by the other woman's sheer presence, but she felt a little more courageous in her rising annoyance.

"That you're together. I don't really see a reason why he'd give you an item so precious as his mother's tear if there wasn't something serious between you."

Mukuro nodded, obviously not surprised by that conclusion.

"So then, you'd step aside? Give up? Because the odds are too daunting? The competition too steep?"

Rei frowned and crossed her arms.

"Now wait a minute, I never said _that_. But I'm not a home wrecker, if you two are together, then I wish him happiness. I know you demons do things differently, but I respect a person's choice, and taken is taken. Besides which, we're still on the same team here, I'm not going to start internal fighting over a guy when that could seriously fuck over the group dynamic."

Mukuro remained silent for a while, making Rei just about the right amount of uncomfortable before speaking again.

"So.. you think we're mates?"

Rei cocked her head at the word. "If that's what you'd like to call it, yeah."

"And if we weren't?"

Rei gave her a look that clearly said she'd already explained this.

"Then I intend to pursue him, I did mention that."

"And you think he'd have you?"

Rei shrugged. "You sure as hell will never hit a target if you don't bother taking the shot."

Mukuro seemed slightly amused by either her, or just her last comment, she honestly wasn't sure.

"What if I was interested in him? Would you dare compete against me?"

Rei quirked a brow.

"If we're talking compete, as in, fighting, then we both know you'd grind my ass into the dust and then some. But learning to love someone has nothing to do with someone's physical power, and with regards to winning his interest we'd find ourselves on a whole other playing field. The only one who could tell me to back off would be Hiei himself."

Rei ground her teeth when Mukuro once again didn't show any form of response besides looking her over. It was really frustrating and made her feel like a frog being dissected in biology class.

After a tense silence that seemed to go on forever Mukuro gave a slight nod before turning around and speaking over her shoulder. "To answer your question. Hiei and I are not mates."

And with that, the demoness vanished from her sight. She was gone so fast Rei almost had the feeling she'd hallucinated her being there in the first place.

* * *

She spent the rest of the day walking around in a kind of surreal stupor. Without realizing it she'd been preparing herself for the worst, kind of accepting in advance that she'd find out that Hiei and Mukuro were involved. But the demoness had denied it... She hadn't given any indication that she approved or disapproved of her interest in Hiei, but she had basically told her Hiei was available.

She'd seen the two together again at the training grounds, but couldn't bring herself to look at them, too lost in her own contemplations. She'd wondered briefly if Mukuro would tell Hiei about their encounter, but she didn't think she would, or at least she fervently hoped she wouldn't.

She was glad her lot didn't end up coming up during training, she was far too distracted to be of any use now. Luckily she was still the new kid, so she didn't have any close friends around who immediately jumped her asking what was wrong when she kept having this spaced out look on her face.

Though she was sure Keiko would've probably asked if she was alright, but the young woman hadn't shown up today, much like a certain dragon.

She was so caught up in her own musings of how to proceed with the Hiei thing, that she didn't notice the suspicious glances Kogasu kept throwing her way.

So she could honestly say that, when she went to go for a swim that evening to wash off the day's dust, she was surprised when the kid cornered her slightly away from camp.

He glared at her suspiciously with bright red eyes that reminded her of his uncle. She raised an eyebrow at his attitude. "Can I help you?"

The kid scoffed, making her smile slightly. Even in his mannerism it was obvious who his hero was.

"I overheard you talking to Mukuro this morning. I won't let you take away uncle Hiei."

Rei gave him a kind of incredulous look. "Ehm.. I think you misunderstood our conversation kid. I have no intention of taking him away from anyone."

He narrowed his eyes and took a step forward in what was undoubtedly supposed to be a menacing way. "You said you're gonna 'purse' him."

Rei snickered. "No, I said 'pursue' which means I want to try and win his affection." She thought for a moment at the blank look that appeared on his adorable face. "You know like, boyfriend girlfriend?" She winced at the words, it sounded so pathetic, but it was the only way she thought the boy might understand.

He seemed to think for a while and then appeared to come to a conclusion when he nodded.

"You wanna have uncle Hiei's babies."

She nearly choked on her own saliva. "Ehm, you're a bit ahead of yourself there I think."

He threw her a haughty look, ignoring her last comment. "He won't give you his babies. My mommy says uncle Hiei doesn't like being 'tied down' to anyone, which is why he's only ever there when he's there and I overheard my dad say that he's too proud to accept anyone loving him."

He seemed distracted for a bit before he mumbled. "Whatever that means.."

Rei crouched down on her haunches to be at eye level with him and smiled. "Yeah I know, but just because the odds are against me you think I should give up? I don't want to, but whatever happens, I promise I won't steal your favourite uncle from you Kogasu."

He narrowed his eyes even further, turning them into slits. "I never allowed you to use my name."

She held up her hands in mock defeat. "My apologies." Then she turned serious again. "Could you do me a favour though? Could you please not tell your uncle about this? I'm afraid if he knows I'm interested in him that way, that he'll run for the hills before I get a chance to win him over."

She pressed her hands together in a begging form as he looked her over. They both turned their heads at the snapping of a twig, Rei's heart immediately jumping into her throat, only to relax again when they were joined by a hesitant Arare.

She smiled shyly. "Sorry."

Then she threw a stern look at her brother. "Don't be so selfish Koga, uncle Hiei deserves to have an important someone. Rei's nice to us and you shouldn't meddle in the affairs of others."

Kogasu self consciously started to shuffle with one of his feet in the dirt, though he still threw his sister a tiny glare in return. "You're just saying what mommy said."

Arare crossed her arms. "Yes, because mommy's right. She and daddy are very happy, don't you want uncle Hiei to be happy?"

He mumbled a nearly inaudible 'yeah..' before looking back up at Rei. "But we don't know if we can trust her."

Arare made an outraged sound. "Koga, that's rude!"

He looked at his sister stubbornly. "So? It's true!"

Rei smiled at their antics. "Look, it's fine. It's good that you're protective of him. Sooo, if you want me to prove myself to you, I will."

She stood back up, gathering her towel more firmly in her arms. "Though before you pass judgement on me, maybe you should get to know me better first huh?"

After a while Arare spoke up again. "Actually mommy send me to find you Koga, it's time to eat.."

He nodded, never breaking eye contact with Rei. "Fine, I'll give you a chance, but you gotta pass every test I give you!" He held up a finger as if he was some reprimanding teacher before turning on his heel and walking back with his sister.

Rei shook her head as she stared after them, this sure appeared to be getting more complicated by the minute.

"Well, well, so someone has finally decided to accept what's in their black little heart have they?" She looked up to find Jack dangling from a tree branch by his claws like some kind of monkey.

"Where the hell have you been all day?"

Not waiting for a response she started walking towards the lake again, hearing the thud of Jack landing on the ground and scurrying after her.

"Well, unlike _you_ , I'm diligently reporting back to our employer once in a while."

She frowned. "Koenma? I figured his contact with Yusuke and Kurama would suffice to keep him up to speed."

Jack shrugged casually. "He likes knowing how his favourite spirit detective's doing. But you're avoiding the topic witch, you decided to 'pursue' Hiei did you?"

She rolled her eyes at the way he drawled out the word 'pursue' as if it was something so old fashioned he ridiculed her for the use of it.

"Yeah, I did. Got a problem with that?"

He grinned maliciously as he hopped up onto a rock while she calmly laid down her towel and started undressing, to which he rolled his eyes and turned his back on her.

"Still no decorum whatsoever."

She just sighed as she tossed aside her shirt. "Still a prudish yet perverted dragon."

Once she was naked, she rushed into the water, not wanting to let the chill get to her and make her change her mind. She dunked her head under and jumped back up, letting out a small 'ahh' at the refreshing feeling as she swiped her wet hair out of her face.

"Now, how about that advice you had huh?"

Realizing the coast was clear he turned back to look at her swimming in the water. "What advice?"

She threw him a look that said he very well knew what she meant.

"What it takes to win the heart of a fire demon."

He smirked evilly. "That's not what I said witch. I said: "if you wanna get in his pants, I know how to entice a creature born of fire."

She scowled at him as she started to cleave through the water before coming to a stop to talk again. "Whatever, I can use all the help I can get."

"Well I'm not denying that..."

She turned to look at him again as she'd been just about to swim again. "Care to repeat that?"

He looked innocently to the side, making her snort before swimming away.

He hopped over to her discarded clothing and picked one dusty piece up with a claw. "Well, for one thing, we need to take you shopping girl. A man needs something good and curvy to make him salivate, and we both know you can use all the help you can get to accentuate your assets.

He barely finished his sentence before he was engulfed in a tidal wave of water, leaving him spluttering and looking like a very pissed off drenched reptile.

* * *

Though she wasn't overly convinced that 'dressing up' was the best way to gain someone's true interest, she couldn't deny that looking physically attractive to the opposite sex probably wouldn't hurt her cause. And when it came to Hiei, she could use all the advantages she could scrape together.

The hard part however, was finding an excuse to be allowed back into the human realm for something as mundane as shopping. They weren't exactly on a camping trip and she wasn't about to get a day off for good effort.

So when Keiko unknowingly provided her with the ultimate excuse, she jumped on it.

"Oh my god! You're right, I totally forgot, but I haven't gotten around to my Christmas shopping yet either." Jack gave her an amused look that clearly said he knew her father was on a business trip and they had no Christmas planned, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

The others just looked at her as if she was a few cards short of a full deck. But Keiko ignored their reactions and smiled broadly at Rei. "Great! We'll go together then. I'm sure the boys can miss you for a day." She threw a glare at Yusuke whose protest froze halfway up his throat and that was that.

Now she found herself in the mall accompanied by Keiko, an 'eager to join as soon as the word 'shopping' was mentioned' Botan, Jack who didn't appear to mind being the only male, and finally Shizuru.

She'd always liked Shizuru's character in the story and her aloof manner in real life didn't disappoint. Though she could do without the cigarette smoke, but the young and relaxed woman was easy to like. Being as blunt as her brother could be rash, she opened up their first meeting. "Wow, you've got some weird energy kid."

Rei shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, I guess I would have, I'm a bit of a mixbreed."

Shizuru put out her cigarette and together they walked around, lazily looking into stores. "So I hear you're the latest addition to the team? Good to know it's not another blockhead."

Rei smiled a little awkwardly, she sure had an interesting way to pay a compliment. "Ehm, thanks? I guess?" Her eyes darted to Jack, who pretended, and in her opinion failed miserably, to appear like a stuffed animal lying over her bag. She had to find a way to get to a clothes store without company. She didn't really feel like fessing up what her real reason for coming here was.

Stopping near an underwear store she chewed her lip, Jack had told her she needed new 'everything' so best to start there she supposed. "Ehm guys? Why don't we split up? I mean, we probably all need different stuff right? And I could use some new underwear anyway so... How about we all do our own thing and meet up for lunch at say, one ish?"

There was obvious hesitation, these girls definitely preferred doing their shopping in droves, and Botan eyed her suspiciously. Though Keiko once again saved the day. "Sure, I pretty much know what I want to get everyone anyway, it'll be faster that way. Then we can shop for pleasure together after." Rei smiled and nodded eagerly. "Yeah, my thoughts exactly!" She was about to turn and walk over to the lingerie store when Keiko continued. "Great, I'll stick with you then, since I need some new underwear myself." Rei paled at her words, but didn't comment. "Botan and Shizuru can go to the kids department for the twins, it's probably best to get those gifts early, it'll be pretty busy there later I bet."

Botan still hesitated. "Don't you need something for the twins too?" Keiko shook her head. "Nah, mom's been so crazy about one of my friends having kids she's got the house stacked with enough toys to last us the next decade in Christmases and birthdays." Finally accepting defeat, Botan and Shizuru made their way in the opposite direction as Keiko, Rei and Jack walked into the lingerie store and started looking around.

Rei surreptitiously glanced over at Keiko once in a while, when the young woman finally seemed far enough out of earshot she whispered to Jack. " Okay, help me out here. What am I supposed to be looking for?"

Before Jack could respond a smiling sales woman appeared before her. "Hello. Can I help you?"

Rei couldn't suppress a blush from rising. "Ehm, yeah I guess, maybe."

The woman smiled warmly, looking her over as if trying to assess her regular taste. She was wearing sweatpants and a baggy sweater covered by a thick jacket against the cold, obviously not the 'sexy lingerie' type.

"Ehm well.. my friend told me I need to change my look, to be a little more, like, sexier?"

The woman glanced over to Keiko, who was browsing through the racks some ways behind them. Obviously assuming that was the friend she'd meant, she smiled and beckoned her to a section with some very colourful sets of lacy underwear.

"Of course, we have just what you need. Do you know your sizes?"

Rei shrugged a little helplessly. "Honestly, I've never really worn anything besides sportswear..." She smiled awkwardly, but the woman only seemed more excited at the prospect of a total make over.

"Well then, we'll just try a few and see what works. Do you have any preferences?" She waved her hand over the large collection of mostly uncomfortable looking pieces of cloth and Rei shifted a little.

"Ehm, well I'm not big on frills and stuff."

She jumped nearly a foot into the air when suddenly Keiko popped up beside her. "Hey, did you find anything?"

Before she could respond the sales woman spoke. "Ah, good, perhaps you can help your friend pick something. Since you're the one advising her to change her look, I'm sure she'll look stunning in some of our new Christmas specials."

Keiko gave her a questioning look, which Rei responded to with an apologetic smile and puppy eyes that said she'd explain later.

Shrugging, Keiko stepped forward and selected a velvety dark blue set. "How about this?"

Before she knew it, Rei was shoved into a changing room and trying out all kinds of things. Once her proper size had been established it didn't take that long to find a few items she liked passably enough. Jack insisted on her wearing something padded, but she quite adamantly refused, so they settled for a slight push up.

They eventually left the store with several new bras, she'd never known they even sold push up sports bras.. and since she'd refused thongs, some new satiny shorts that, according to Jack, made her 'butt look cute'.

Keiko herself was quite pleased with one of the sexy Christmas sets she'd undoubtedly selected to please Yusuke, while Rei walked beside her feeling uneasy about her own new acquisitions.

"Soooo... what, or should I say _who_ , made you decide to sexy up your style?" Keiko gave her a very suggestive look and Rei scowled.

"Fine, you win, I came to the conclusion that perhaps Kurama's herb wasn't a 100% defective after all okay?"

Keiko grinned victoriously. "So, you're going for a complete make over?" Her face fell as she turned contemplative. "I wonder if Hiei's the type of guy who'd even notice if you showed up bald though.."

Rei sighed. "Yeah, I know.. It's not like I want to change who I am or something either. But he's still a guy right? And according to the expert.." She cast a pointed look at her 'stuffed animal'. "Fire demons are very passionate, sooo he says I should try to make him burn up a little."

Rei grinned sheepishly at Keiko's slightly shocked look. But then the brunette laughed and they continued shopping together in an amiable atmosphere.

By the time they made it to the rendez-vous café, Rei was carrying so many bags she could barely keep her hands around the handles.

Since she'd be spending most of her time fighting, they'd first focussed on getting her some practical yet sexy sports outfits. Which ended up in her showing a lot of leg and stomach, which she'd complained was impractical, to which Jack had retorted the fabric wasn't going to protect her from getting hit anyway.

She wasn't comfortable in dresses or skirts, but Keiko had convinced her to buy one skin tight strapless black dress for Christmas's sake, though she couldn't imagine herself ever wearing it.

Besides that they'd focussed on everyday clothes, but, instead of the baggy simple stuff Rei usually wore, she now had a load of skinny jeans. According to Jack, they once again accentuated her ass, which made her roll her eyes. And since she liked tank tops, she'd been allowed tank tops, though these were remarkably tighter and much lower cut, showing a fair amount of cleavage.

All in all, they'd found a decent compromise together and Rei let herself drop down in the chair utterly exhausted. Keiko smiled as she sat down opposite her, looking no worse for wear.  
"You know, you're actually gaining quite a bit of attention."

Rei just raised a brow at her. Both Jack and Keiko had insisted she wear one of her new outfits with some of the new underwear, to make her get comfortable in it before she had to wear it in front of Hiei, or so they said. Personally she felt like she could balance her drink on top of her breasts now, and she wasn't exactly used to feeling like she was squeezed into some kind of fabric corset from head to foot. The only thing she really loved was the leather jacket she'd found in a blow out sale.

Keiko looked her over curiously. "You know.. If we're going to do this, I think we should get you a haircut too." She checked her watch. "The others probably won't be here for another half hour, let's go see if there's room." Before she could protest, Rei was dragged out of her chair again, quickly grasping her many bags and throwing an apologetic look at the waiter who'd just been about to come to their table.

As luck would have it, everyone was busy Christmas gift shopping. So the hairdresser was practically deserted. An overly enthusiastic woman with very orange hair greeted them upon entering and Keiko unceremoniously shoved Rei forward.

About forty five minutes later she was gifted with a new set of bangs and stylishly layered hair which ended between her shoulder blades. Keiko elbowed her kind of enthusiastically every time a guy so much as glanced her way and she was quite pleased when they reached the other two girls and she was once again allowed to sink into a chair and try to fade into the background.

Botan blinked, quite obviously stunned. "Wow, someone made good use of her time here." Rei blushed slightly, swiping her bangs out of her eyes. But before the inevitable storm of questions could start Keiko butted in. "Yeah, we were done real early, so I forced a make over on Rei. She's so pretty, it's such a waste how she didn't show it you know."

Rapidly shaking her head up and down Botan took a sip from her hot cocoa as she looked Rei over. "Yes, If I had known there was such a babe hidden under all that grunge I would've taken you shopping myself!"

Rei grinned sheepishly at the compliment, she could only hope Hiei would think something similar... somehow, she doubted he'd even notice a change, but at least she'd feel sexier.

They spend the rest of the day together having fun, finishing with dinner and a movie before finally calling it a night and heading home.

The last time she'd entered a portal to the Makai, Rei had been excited. This time, she was nervous as hell...


	13. Kisses in the Moonlight

**Chapter 13!  
** **  
For anyone who noticed that I started another story, no worries, I'm not quitting or pauzing this one.  
I just need to put my mind to some completely different stuff before rereading a chapter to be sure it's not a total mess, and writing a different story alongside this one can help me do that :)  
(Though of course that's not the only reason, I've been dying to write a story for that character for ages hehe)  
** **  
I'm sorta kinda trying to function as my own beta-reader to the best of my ability.**

 **Anywayyy, heading into the 'more Hiei & Rei interactions' territory here makes me feel like skating on thin ice, I truly hope I manage to do his character justice and keep him as in character as I can!**

 **Kudos to Yoshihiro Togashi for creating the wonderful story of Yu Yu Hakusho. By which one can draw the logical conclusion that I do not own said story or its characters.**

* * *

The moment they had set foot on the other side Rei froze, making Keiko look back at her in question.

"I'm not sure I can do this..."

Jack let loose a slightly annoyed grunt as Keiko sighed, turned around and roughly laid her hands on Rei's shoulders, giving her a stern look.

"Look, I get that you're a little uncomfortable going from practical to skintight outfits, but you honestly look really sexy! Forget Hiei's reaction, forget any guy's reaction, you're a good looking girl and you deserve to show it, have some fun! Let loose for a change."

Rei eyed her suspiciously. "Says the girl who spends most of her time in uniforms."

Keiko snorted. "Hey, I dress up. But I'm still an intern and if I want a good follow up job I have to have a certain image."

She eyed Rei with a stern look once more. "You, on the other hand, are a fighter. And trust me when I say the guys work their asses off to become good at what they do, but those shirts don't only get thrown to the wind because they're too hot from the work out... if you get my drift."

Keiko gave her a suggestive look and Rei couldn't help but quirk a lopsided grin. "You work out as hard as any of them, you have just as much right to show off that nicely sculpted body of yours." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I mean, you're even making me consider working out.. honestly you look good and have nothing to be ashamed of."

She grabbed her arm and dragged her along. "Now let's go already."

Rei couldn't help but blush slightly at Keiko's rant, though she couldn't deny it had made her feel better.

The firelight coming from the village was easy to follow and when they stepped from the cover of the forest it was as if they'd never left.

The guys were once again caught up in some kind of card game, in which Kuwabara was currently accusing Yusuke of cheating, who just as loudly denied it.

Her eyes scanned the area, but she didn't see Hiei anywhere. Sighing, she continued walking beside Keiko to the others near the fire. Perhaps it was for the best, seeing their reactions might make it easier to face the fire demon later.

Touya noticed them first and she didn't miss the way his eyes widened slightly as he looked her over. His reaction boosted her confidence. If the ice demon could be enticed into reacting, however small a reaction it was, then there was hope yet.

They'd decided to stuff the clothes into as few bags as possible and share them amongst themselves, so it didn't appear so much as if Rei had bought a whole new wardrobe. Which she had, but they didn't need to know that.

Once they were right next to them, Keiko dropped her share of the bags with as much noise as possible, effectively ending Kuwabara and Yusuke's bickering and making them turn to look at them.

"Great, you're finally back. Took ya long enough! Now as for skipping a day, we've decided you'll be up fighting all rounds tomorrow as punish..." Yusuke's words trailed off as he finally took a good look at Rei standing just behind his fiancée.

His face turned from surprised to curious to a downright sneaky and almost lecherous kind of 'alriggghhht' smirk as he looked her over. He whistled a low tune. "Well, well, well, would ya look at our new and improved little team member. You clean up nice squirt, didn't think you were the type to actively go looking for action." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively before getting hit in the face with one of Keiko's bags.

"Yusuke, don't be such a horndog."

He rubbed his cheek as he threw her an innocent smile. "What?!"

Kuwabara just snorted. "Ignore the idiot Rei, you look very nice. Not as nice as my Yukina of course, but very nice still."

She couldn't help but laugh and shake her head at the goofy expression on his face as he talked about Yukina. But she suddenly jumped in surprise when someone took hold of her hand, and turned her head to stare into a very close pair of pink eyes.

"You do look quite lovely, Rei.."

The way Shishi trailed out the sound of her name made her even more uncomfortable than his proximity did, and she smiled nervously at him.

"Can I assist you with your bags?"

She pulled her hand out of his and shook her head. "No, I'm fine thank you." Using it as an easy excuse to step away, she leaned down and picked up her bags again. "Let me just go place these in my room, I'll be right back."

She practically felt everyone's eyes burn into her back as she made her way over to the tower that held her tiny room. Once they were out of sight, Jack started to snicker.

"Well I'd say that was a succes, most of them were stunned speechless."

Rei just gave him a look. "They normally don't say much either you know."

Jack grinned a sharp toothed little grin. "Not with those facial expressions though." He gave her a haughty look. "Come on, say it, say it, who's the mastah?"

Rei snorted and rolled her eyes. "Alright, changing my style of dress probably wasn't such a bad idea. Happy?"

He gave her a pointed look, but didn't press further.

Once in her room, she folded her new clothes away before making her way back down and joining the boys at the fire. She made sure to take a seat between Kuwabara and Keiko, away from Shishi's uncomfortable presence and Yusuke's lewd remarks.

The girls joined in on the cardgame and pretty soon everything was back to normal, down to the point that Keiko hit Yusuke over the head again when he suggested they play 'truth or dare'.

By the time they were headed to bed, Rei's initial discomfort about her new appearance had completely evaporated and she smiled and waved as each of the guys bid her goodnight. Walking back at a leisurely pace she was completely unaware of a pair of ruby red eyes staring after her from the forest's edge.

* * *

The next morning, Rei rose early. She'd definitely see Hiei again today, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't nervous and excited.

After a quick wash, she pulled on a new sports bra and a pair of boxer shorts. Over it she chose one of her new training shorts, which were literally just about an inch longer than her boxers and fitting almost just as tightly. To her, it felt like she was wearing two sets of underwear. She shrugged, with all the sweating she would be doing the dust was probably going to stick to her legs like bodypaint anyway.

The shorts came with a matching top, which really was no more than another bra, except it didn't have the push up thing going. Deciding she wasn't quite so bold just yet, she laid the top aside and grabbed one of her new tanktops instead.

The cleavage it showed was daring enough in her opinion, she didn't need to feel like she was prancing around in a bikini all day.

Her hair she pulled up into a high ponytail, a little annoyed that she was going to have to get used to the bangs flying around.

She was the first to make it to the training grounds, having eaten a quick breakfast she'd decided to get started on a proper warm up. Her gut told her they weren't going to go easy on her today.

She stood at the cliff's edge, stretching on her tiptoes, wondering if she should just jog a bit for a warm up or try jumping from place to place around the ruined area. She turned her head and looked down when a set of bright orange reddish hair appeared next to her.

She grinned. "Morning Kogasu, you're up early."

The boy gave her a look. "Still didn't allow you to use my name."

She rolled her eyes. "Well what can I call you then? Brat?"

He scoweled and it looked so darn cute Rei couldn't help but laugh, waving her hands apologetically. "Sorry."

He looked her over only to give her a piercing stare. "I want you to take me bouncing again."

She raised a brow. "Bouncing?"

He nodded and crossed his arms. "Yeah, you'd do anything I asked right?"

She gave him a look that clearly said she hadn't meant becoming his personal servant. "Anything to prove my worth, since you seem to doubt me so much kiddo. But don't think that means I'll do anything you ask of me."

He grimaced. "Don't call me kiddo, _human_."

She snorted. "You're half human yourself, _kiddo_."

They stood there glaring at each other for a while before Rei sighed. "What do you mean by 'bouncing'?"

He pointed down over the cliff's edge. "You know, dropping down and bouncing back."

She raised both her brows this time. "You know your mom's going to skin me if she sees me doing that right?"

He tssk'd at her and crossed his arms. "If you're scared of my mom, you sure as hell don't stand a chance against uncle Hiei."

She rolled her eyes, growled lightly and picked him up. "Fine, don't complain to me if you start puking."

With that she jumped over the edge, allowing them to be sucked down by gravity at top speed before forming her shield and letting them bounce back again.

Kogasu meanwhile, squealed in delight and grabbed hold of her firmly, his red eyes practically glowing. "Come on! More! Bounce all over the place!"

Rolling her eyes, but smiling nonetheless, she pushed off against the cliff when they were halfway up and before they knew it, they were bouncing around the canyon like some insane bouncy ball.

By the time she brought him back up to their starting point, both laughing, the others had arrived.

She stopped laughing when she noticed Hiei, though a smile remained on her face. He was looking at her with that same unreadable expression he always wore. It was so annoyingly impossible to tell what he was thinking.

When their eyes met she felt like her stomach was being tied into knots and everything around them faded to black.

But then he looked away again and whatever spell she was under suddenly broke into pieces. Had he liked her new appearance? She had no idea if he'd even really registered it, he may just have been scrutinizing her because she'd been playing with his nephew.

Agh, she felt like pulling on her hair in frustration. If she wanted to get any form of readable reaction out of Hiei, she'd have to be more assertive. She'd already learned that particular lesson during their training together. Only back then, she'd still been in denial of her attraction to him.

Mustering up her courage, she walked over to him, trying to give him a somewhat seductive smile, though she had no idea if she was pulling that off. "Good morning."

He looked at her, seeming to question why she came over to bid him a 'good morning' though not caring enough to remark on it. "Hn."

When he looked away again she grit her teeth, not that this was unexpected, but it felt extra frustrating now that coaxing a reaction out of him suddenly had so much more meaning.

Before she could try anything else though, Yusuke pulled their attention to the lot drawing and she was paired up with Mukuro for her first match against Jin and Suzuka.

Sighing, she gave up for now and walked back over to the cliff's edge, jumping down casually now that she was used to the drop, and coming to stand beside Mukuro.

The demoness didn't look at her when she spoke, and like Hiei, her facial expression may just as well have been set in stone. "You think to seduce him with your body then?"

The question was asked in just the right way to make Rei doubt herself, but she refused to be a push over. Sure, she was trying to gain his attention by looking more interesting on a physical level, but if her body was all he'd want, then that wouldn't be enough for her anyway. It was a means to get his attention, not her ultimate goal to win a one night stand.

She shrugged, hoping her thoughts were as unreadable as the demoness's, but fearing she didn't have the years required to pull that off. "When it comes to Hiei, I'm not leaving a single stone unturned."

Mukuro actually laughed at that, though it was so modest no one else noticed it. Rei gave her a quizical look, she'd never seen the woman amused like that before.

Deciding to focus on the task at hand however, she connected her energy to the tumultuous swerve that was Mukuro. They'd only ever fought together once before, and she was no less impressed with the vastness of her essence.

Knowing the demoness preferred for her to stay out of the way, she stayed back as the fight began, focussing on shielding Mukuro. By now, she'd trained often enough to keep her eyes open and actually watch the fight.

Jin tried to aim ghusts of wind at her in order to either distract her from shielding Mukuro or to knock her out completely, she wasn't sure. But she just gave him amused glances as she avoided every hit, keeping Mukuro shielded, who made sure neither of their two opponents could physically come anywhere near Rei.

The fight was over in record time and both Jin and Suzuka were groaning in the dust while Mukuro jumped back up the cliffs as if coming back from a sunday afternoon stroll.

The fact that they didn't have to bother with defence during fights seemed to make her partners become all the more dangerous offensively, as all their energy and concentration went into their attacks.

In the end, it was usually Rei who was out of breath when the match was over, while her team mate walked away without an issue.

Yusuke refused to cut her any slack though, probably still annoyed she'd skipped out on them for christmas shopping just two weeks before the tournament. And she found herself fighting alongside Kuwabara next.

Exhausted and beat up, Yukina healed her over lunch before they once again head back to the training grounds to continue their relentless training.

"Well squirt, let's see who you're up with next."

Rei glared at Yusuke who grinned back widely as his hand once again went down to draw the lots.

"And it's... Shishi with Touya vs Rei and... Hiei." Yusuke scowled. "Damn it, I'm getting tired of sitting on the sidelines here."

Rei's heart skipped a beat when she heard his name. Of course she'd need to be focussed on the fight, but being that closely connected to Hiei always made her feel at peace somehow.

She stretched her muscles slightly before once again entering down into the canyon, although by now it honestly resembled more of a pit of rubble than the serene canyon it had once been.

Shishi and Touya seemed to be discussing tactics, so she casually strolled over to Hiei, whose only movement came from the wind blowing through his spiky black hair and the fabric of his clothes.

He looked so intense yet so beautiful in a dangerous kind of way, she wished she could reach out and touch him. But she knew better than to risk losing a hand.

Swiping a strand of hair from her eyes she looked at him. "So.. Any battle tactics?"

She normally never really talked before a fight. These guys knew each other through and through, they didn't really need battle tactics, just her shields and they'd know how to beat the others by their weaknesses. But she wanted to use any excuse to be able to talk to Hiei, however flimsy.

His eyes shifted to her, as if only now deigning to acknowledge her presence. "If Shishi uses his chorus of a thousand skulls, shield yourself."

She frowned but nodded, then proceeded to connect to Hiei's essence when Yusuke gave the notice to get ready.

Somehow, he seemed hesitant to let her in and she cast him a questioning look. But before she could ask, Yusuke had given the Go and Hiei accepted her connection quickly before Touya was already right in front of them.

Rei gasped when he aimed an ice blade right at her, but Hiei intercepted it with his sword just before it could touch her.

Touya 'tsk'd' and jumped back, Hiei following suit and the fight was on.

Using similar tactics to Mukuro, Hiei made sure neither of their opponents could approach her. So it didn't take long before Shishi indeed started to summon his chorus. With horns and razor sharp teeth, he didn't look near as boyishly charming as he usually did.

As the wind started picking up around them and the atmosphere appeared to darken, Rei wondered what to do.  
Hiei had clearly told her to shield her own ass if this happened, but it felt wrong to leave him hanging, even if she knew he could take care of himself, this was supposed to be a team effort wasn't it?

Ignoring the strands of hair flying around her face she stubbornly tried to create a second shield while still keeping her focus on blocking out Touya's attacks on Hiei.

However, trying to divide her energy like that felt like she was being torn in two and she gasped, only narrowly keeping up with Touya's high speed attacks as she tried to focus on both things at once, meanwhile feeling her feet drag a little in the sand as the intensity of Shishi's power grew.

She grit her teeth. "Come on damn it, women are supposed to be good at multitasking."

She was so caught up in trying to shield both Hiei and herself, that she missed the starting of Shishi's massive attack. Suddenly, the wind got knocked out of her and she feared she'd been hit, only to realize she was being held by a pair of muscular arms.

Looking up, she noticed a very heavy red glare stare down at her before they came to a halt some distance away. She was only just appreciating the comforting feel of his body's warmth so close to hers when he dropped her down. She barely kept her footing as he turned, taking on a defensive pose and blocking out any skulls that came in their direction while keeping his eyes trained on Touya, who was fast approaching again.

It didn't take a genius to be able to tell that he was annoyed with her disobedience, he probably would've told her off like a child if it hadn't been for the howling noise filling the area and effectively blocking any possible conversation. In her vexation over his attitude she lost focus just long enough for Touya to land a hit.

Hiei went flying and she once again found herself face to face with the ice demon, who smirked victoriously before aiming his ice blade at her.

She yelped and only barely jumped aside. She tried to lunge for him, but Touya was much too fast for her and he vanished before her fist could connect. Turning around she narrowly dodged another attack only to come to a standstill right in front of Shishi, who grinned widely before aiming a swipe at her that she once again managed to evade in the nick of time, but the movement made her stumble and fall to the ground.

"Fist of the mortal flame!" She turned and looked up to find Hiei taking control of the fight. She scrambled off the ground and quickly tried to re-establish her connection to him, only to find he blocked her out.

She balled her fists and ground her teeth while trying to glare at him so hard he'd feel it burn a hole in his back. But he ignored her completely as he continued pummeling his adversaries into the dust, despite the damage he was taking in the process.

Stubborn as a mule, she tried her best to shield him without the connection, though it was obviously much less efficient.

When the match was finally over, she was exhausted and let herself fall to the ground. She flipped over on her back and stared up at the hot sun in anger.

How was she supposed to make a good team mate if he didn't allow her to actually be useful?

Watching a lone bird of prey make lazy circles above her and cawing in the now silent area, she felt like she was lying there moping for eternity, when a long shadow fell over her. She craned her neck to see Yusuke looking down at her calmly. When she turned her eyes to the cliff side, she noticed the others had already gone. Training was over for the day.

She sighed deeply and sat up, brushing the dust off her arms before looking up at Yusuke again.

"Well that sucked."

When he gave no response she sighed again and narrowed her eyes at him.

"What do you want?"

He grinned at her attitude before taking a seat on a large boulder close to her. "Just came to make sure you hadn't died down here, you've been lying here for about thirty minutes straight now."

She leaned her chin in her palm as she placed her elbow on her knee sitting indian style. "Yeah well, I may as well, for all you guys seem to care. I can't believe that damn bastard blocked me out."

Yusuke's expression didn't change, though something about him felt a bit stern. "Demons are not exactly the coddling type, if that's what you were expecting, you shouldn't have joined us."

She groaned and stood up, dusting off her legs. "No, but how are we supposed to form a team if my team mate refuses to cooperate?"

He shrugged as he stood up himself. "Hiei's Hiei. He asked you to do something and you didn't, if he can't trust you to take care of yourself during a fight then you're a liability to him. He doesn't do liabilities."

Rei frowned, thinking it over. "I was just trying to be helpful though, shielding myself when things get hairy doesn't really feel like a proper team thing to do."

He slapped a hand on her back making her take a step forward to keep from keeling over. "Nah, but like I said, Hiei's Hiei. And really, it would do none of us any good if we have to worry about you risking your ass during a fight."

She glowered at him. "Of course I wouldn't just do that! But this is training, we're supposed to push our limits aren't we?"

He held up his hands defensively and shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. But, you're a girl.. and not a girl like Mukuro either, but a real girl girl, ya know."

He pushed a hand through his hair when her glower only seemed to intensify. "I'm not saying you can't fight, you wouldn't be here if you couldn't. But you _are_ the weakest here and it's kind of impossible to see you as 'one of the guys'." He looked her over with a grin. "Especially now."

She rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Okay so what? You guys don't want me taking risks because I'm female? That's such bull."

He laughed at her indignation. "Well no, but if you wanted to try pushing your limits with the shielding, you probably should've let Hiei know. He was your team mate after all."

He looked at her firmly before continuing. "Shit goes both ways you know. And this might be training, but those attacks don't have a moderation switch. If you get hit, you get seriously hit."

She grit her teeth in annoyance. "So what? I'm supposed to be grateful for Hiei saving my ass and then ignoring me?"

Yusuke shrugged and started walking back home. "No, I'm just saying you both have reason to be pissed at the other. So maybe that evens shit out and you can get over it already. We honestly don't have time for bitch fits."

She stared after him, still vexed but with a gnawing feeling that he was probably right, even if only a little bit.

* * *

She couldn't sleep. She tossed, she turned, she squeezed her eyes shut, hell she even tried counting sheep, but she just couldn't fall asleep.

Giving up, she opened her eyes and gazed out the window. Normally, she'd expect it was out of anger that she couldn't sleep. But if she was honest, she couldn't stand the thought that Hiei was annoyed with her. That he might not want to fight with her anymore.

Not that he would have a choice if their lots were drawn together during the tournament, but still. This gnawing feeling that he may want her gone was too much for her to be able to relax and sleep peacefully.

She groaned and lay flat on her back for a moment, placing an arm over her eyes. "Damn this guy is getting to me so bad."

Rolling out of bed she took to her feet and decided to go look for him, she wasn't going to catch a wink of sleep if she didn't resolve this first.

Knowing Hiei, he probably slept outside in a tree somewhere. Thankfully, he wasn't suppressing his energy and once outside, she could easily follow where it led her.

Instead of a tree however, she once again found herself at the lake and it didn't take her long to spot him, her jaw dropping slightly at the sight.

He was buckling up his pants, barefoot and chest glistening with small droplets of water. The light of the moon made the contrast all the more intruiging. He'd obviously just taken a swim and she found herself frozen to the spot, staring at him.

"What do you want, onna?"

The harsh tone of his voice made her flinch, but she resolutely stepped out of the shadows.

"To talk. I'm sorry I didn't shield myself like you said I had to. I wanted to try and improve, I figured that's what training's meant to do right?"

She tried not to sound defensive, she didn't want to end up fighting with him. But she wasn't going to grovel and apologize either. He'd been a bastard during that fight and he could damn well know she didn't appreciate it.

Finishing up with his buckles he swiped a hand through his wet hair, and looked at her. His gaze penetrating her to the bone.

"When we fight, you do as I say."

She narrowed her eyes at him and defiantly stepped closer, though she admitted to herself that part of her did so just to get a better look at him.

"I get that you're more experienced and stronger, but you don't have to order me around. I won't claim to do something you ask and then end up not doing it again, like I did today. But I'm my own person and I want to improve. Besides, even if I fuck up, you don't have to shut me out like that damn it."

He narrowed his eyes and then looked away, appearing just about ready to take off.

She walked closer, now close enough to touch him, as if trying to keep him from leaving.

"Alright, when we fight for real, I'll do as you say without question." She breathed in deeply before continuing, knowing she had his attention even if he didn't look at her. "But you gotta cut me some slack during training okay?"

She didn't think he was going to react, as for a while the only sound she heard were the crickets surrounding them. But then he nodded, one slight almost imperceptible nod. It was probably the closest thing to an apology she'd ever get from him and she smiled broadly.

Before she could lose her courage she stood on her tiptoes, leaned closer and was about to kiss him gently on the cheek when he suddenly vanished. She blinked as she regained her balance, catching sight of him a few feet ahead.

He looked at her with an expression she couldn't fully fathom, like several emotions were warring at once in his features. There was accusation, distrust even anger, but also, dare she say, some curiosity. His pose was slightly defensive and wary. Though the narrowing of his deep red eyes produced such a glare it froze her to the spot like a deer caught in headlights. It lasted but a millisecond before his ever stoic expresssion and aloof attitude was back in place. He looked her over as if dissecting her, much like Mukuro had done the previous week. And then, he was gone, leaving her stunned by the water's edge.


	14. Red Christmas

**I swear I jinx myself with my preface messages!  
Saying I won't pause writing and then ending up not posting for three months...**

 **As I've said before, no matter how long I may take between updates, I do fully intend to finish this story :) Eventually.. :P**

 **In the meantime I hope people will still enjoy it!**

 **I've been wondering if I should do a Hiei point of view at some point...**  
 **since I'm writing it I know what I'm having him think about everything, but for a reader his thoughts on the situations I put them in might not be so obvious.**  
 **The fear I have in doing a Hiei P.O.V. is, well, he's Hiei.. showing the world through his eyes won't be easy and I really do wanna keep him in character. Plus, I think it's fun to feel Rei's anxiety about everything, if we know what Hiei's thinking her pain won't be shared as deeply.**

 **Anyway, it's about time the story's plot gets a kick in the ass again, sooo moving forward!**

 **And again Yu Yu Hakusho does not belong to me and I'm not making any money off the stuff I'm writing here.**

 _Also, as a side note, I recently found out that new novels can be a max of 100k words... not that I intended to become a published author but, following that rule of thumb, is my story becoming long wired? o.O I always feel like I'm rushing things, but looking at the word count it's more like overblown perhaps?  
Aagh I really should get myself a beta reader -.-  
_

* * *

"AAhhhh..." Rei groaned contentedly as she slowly flexed her back muscles under Yukina's healing touch. "I swear, I'd marry your hands if I could, Kuwabara's such a lucky dog to have you."

The orange haired male looked up and grinned widely. "Yukina's the most wonderful woman in all the worlds." He stared at the female in question with an utterly adoring look on his face and Yukina smiled warmly.

"You're so sweet Kazuma." She turned back to her patient. "There, all patched up."

Rei slipped off the table and turned around. "Thanks, I'm sorry I keep having to ask you to heal me."

Yukina shook her head calmly. "Don't worry about it, I'm glad to help. And your injuries are becoming less severe." She snickered lightly as she gave a playful look to her husband. "Unlike Kazuma's."

Kuwabara didn't appear offended at all as he proudly puffed his chest out. "A real man makes sure he takes the brunt of the damage when fighting alongside a lady."

Rei snorted. "I'm no lady." She worried her brows slightly as she continued. "Though honestly, I kind of hope our lots won't end up drawn together in the tournament."

Kuwabara looked very much offended at that. "Hey! Just because you're forced to do a little extra work doesn't mean we make a bad team together. Don't underestimate the awesomeness that's us!"

Rei just shook her head, laughing slightly at his enthusiasm. She never could tell if Kuwabara was simply too dense, in denial, or truly believed that much in himself. Though she supposed no one ever really gave him the credit he deserved. He might be a bit of a goofball but, somehow, he always managed to pull through.

"Besides, don't forget, this Koechi guy is probably going to use his device thingy to make the demons taking part in the tournament weaker. We might end up becoming the dream team if that happens."

She bit her lip, worry stealing over her features. In all truth, she'd completely forgotten about that. Most of her thoughts had remained occupied with a certain fire demon, while her time was mostly taken up by constant training. She sighed slightly as she thought of Hiei.

After that night by the lake, she'd half expected him to be gone by morning, away on some 'urgent' errand or something. But he'd remained his ever stoic self, almost as if nothing had happened. She'd tried approaching him whenever an opportunity presented itself, but never got much further than a simple 'hello', 'good morning' or 'here, I brought you something to eat' which never received more than either a nod or semi disdainful 'hn' in reply.

She kind of felt like he'd prefer avoiding her completely, but then, he'd never been much of a talker, so she could just be letting her insecurities get the best of her.

Not wanting to stand around moping near the two lovebirds, she pulled herself from her thoughts and smiled at them. "Well, I better go gather up my stuff."

* * *

Hugging her jacket close, she stepped out of the bus at her stop, the snow crunching beneath her boots. She shivered when an ice cold wind blew by. Honestly, she'd have preferred staying in the Makai. But having taken a day off for 'christmas shopping', it would look a little weird if she didn't go to celebrate the holiday afterwards. She sighed as she made her way through the thick snow. She hadn't seen Hiei since the last training session, not that she'd really expected him to see her off or anything, and Jack had once again gone off to see Koenma for whatever reason.

She looked up at the grey sky, watching the occasional snowflake drift by. She trudged on in the direction of Kameki's house. She hadn't let him know she was coming. She figured, since he was a demon in the human realm, that he probably didn't have much family around for christmas. And if he did, she could always just stay for coffee and go back to her father's appartment instead.

She pulled up her scarf and blew some warm breath on her red fingers protruding from her thick jacket's long arms. She didn't want to come across as though she was inviting herself to stay, so she'd dumped her bags at home before making her way over here.

She felt familiar enough with the place to allow herself entrance through the back yard however, and the hinges of the garden's gate creaked when she pushed it open. She stepped into the pristine white garden, feeling a bit bad about breaking its ethereal beauty with her crude footsteps.

"Kameki-sensei?" She looked around as she stepped onto the porch, absentmindedly stomping the sticky snow off her boots. Her breath came out in little puffs as she tried to see through the windows if anyone was home. It seemed awfully dark inside, despite the fact that the afternoon was already growing dimmer.

She walked up to the door and laid her hand on the knob. "Kameki-sen.." She looked down in surprise when she felt the door give way with barely any pressure.

Cautiously, she stepped inside the dark little hall, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. Goosebumps prickled her skin, and not from the cold this time.

"Kameki-sensei?" Her voice was softer now, more hesitant as she stepped further into the house. Entering the kitchen, she laid her hand on the high wooden bar when she passed it slowly, as if seeking comfort from the solid wood.

She quickly pulled her hand away when she felt something sticky. Rubbing her fingers together her eyes grew wide at the dark, thick, liquid. She stumbled backwards into a high stool as she looked upon the stain on the wooden slab, a silent cry on her lips.

It was then that she noticed the wreckage the house was in. Looking to the living room she saw overturned and broken furtniture, glass and pottery shards littered the floor. Splatters and stains, of what could only be blood, covered, not only the bar, but the walls and carpets, even the ceiling.

Every instinct screamed for her to get out of this horror show, but she forced herself to walk further and make sure Kameki wasn't here. She blanched at the thought that she might stumble across his dead body, but she couldn't very well run screaming to someone else either, she had no doubt the human police would be no help to her. Ordinary human robbery wasn't something Kameki would fall victim to.

"Kameki-sensei? If you're here, please answer me."

She stepped around the broken chairs, crunching some shards of glass under her boots and wincing at the noise.

The far side living room wall was now a pile of rubble and she could see straight into the bedroom beyond it. Hearing a strange hissing noise she tensed. Slowly making her way towards it, she found the bathroom in shambles, water spraying from the broken sink.

What the hell had happened here? Having searched every area of the small home, she realized no one was here and decided that the best she could do was report her findings to Koenma. She shuddered as she made her way past the blood patterns again, hoping against hope that it wasn't her teacher's.

Pale and shivering, she closed the door and rushed off the porch back into the yard. She'd left her compact at the appartment and would have to make her way back there before she could alert anyone. At the gate, the toe of her boot stuck behind a metal bar on the ground and she tripped. Falling down on her hands and knees in the cold snow, she shook and looked down at small droplets melting the cold snow below her. She couldn't stop those tears from rolling down her cheeks.

She may have been training for ruthless, real life combat, but she hadn't been prepared for anything like this.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes with her frozen fingers when she suddenly noticed a pair of black boots in front of her. Looking up, shaken and surprised, her eyes widened when she recognized Hiei, now wearing his long black cloak.

His red eyes looked down at her, stoic as ever, but she'd never felt so happy to see anyone in her life.

Pulling herself together she brushed off the snow as she stood up. Hiei looked from her, to the house, clearly questioning what had upset her so much.

She swallowed a little nervously as she wiped the last stray tear from her cold face while looking up at him. "I... I don't know what happened. Kameki-sensei was my teacher.. The house.. it's.. it's."

Not waiting for her to finish, he set off for the house in a flash.

Barely a minute seemed to have passed before he suddenly materialized again. Despite having become accustomed to his insane speed, she jumped slightly while trying to get a grip on herself.

He looked at her, and she resisted the urge to squirm under his gaze. Then, without barely any pause he grabbed hold of her wrist and yanked her towards him, making her stumble into his chest.

Her eyes grew wide, thinking for a flash of a moment that he was going to comfort her. But instead he just grabbed her around her waist firmly and took off, forcing her to wrap her arms around him and hold on for dear life as he raced away from Kameki's house.

After starting to feel like something akin to a sack of potatoes, he finally dumped her on the ground somewhere in the middle of a large field. Obviously they'd left the city. She frowned up at him as she rubbed her sore butt. "You could just set me on my feet you know." Looking around them she took note of their desolate surroundings. "Where are we anyway?"

He didn't even glance at her, let alone respond to her question. But shortly after asking it, a portal came into existence beside her. She looked at it in surprise just as Hiei stepped forward and once again yanked her unceremoniously to her feet, making her glare at him as he dragged her along through the portal.

"Boy, you really do have a way with women don't you." She smiled innocently when his crimson glare momentarily rested on her, indicating that he'd heard her.

He pulled her through a long hallway, ogres flitting about the place left and right, making wide births around them when they noticed him.  
When they came to a set of familiar heavy doors, he forcefully yanked her in front of him and pushed her through.

She glared at him over her shoulder. "Hey!" Stumbling inelegantly into the massive room, she looked up to find a teenage Koenma staring at them in a mixture of annoyance and intrigue.

"Hiei? Fancy seeing you here. That can't be good news." He looked her over, seeming to question why she was here. "You know you're not allowed to bring people here right?" He sighed, as if realizing trying to get Hiei to abide by the rules was an impossible feat anyway. "You must be Rei then? You do look quite a bit like Genkai." He stepped foward from behind his desk, arms locked behind his back as he cast her a stern but appraising gaze. "I'm Koenma, leader of the spiritual realm."

She looked at his passive face in stunned silence for a moment, she didn't think Koenma would be quite this good at acting. Even she was beginning to doubt if she'd ever met this man before. He intended to take this ruse pretty damned far then, Kameki was most likely dead and yet he still wanted to prevent the guys from knowing who she truly was?  
She supposed she had no choice but to go along with it, undoubtedly he had a good reason.

She grit her teeth, that didn't mean she had to be polite about it though. "What happened to Kameki-sensei?"

Koenma quirked a brow at her rudeness, then turned to Hiei. "What happened?"

Hiei shrugged, folding his arms over his chest. "Some demon got attacked in his own home, I could smell two scents on the blood, he must've put up a decent fight. Found her outside having a meltdown."

Koenma frowned. "How long ago?"

Hiei seemed to think a while. "The blood was old, I'd say more than a week ago."

Koenma nodded. "I'll send a team to look into it." He turned to look at Rei again, who was still glaring at Hiei for the 'meltdown' comment. "You said his name was Kameki?"

She looked up, broken out of her one sided staring contest, and nodded. "Yes."  
Koenma leaned against his desk as he appraised her once again. "And he was your teacher? The one who gave you access to the Makai?"

She shrugged, not seeing what the big deal was, though obviously it was still a sore spot for Koenma. "Yes, he thought it would make for better training."

"Did he have any enemies?" She shook her head. "Not that I know of."

Koenma sighed and nodded. "I'll look into this, meanwhile I want you guys to be available to me at all times. This includes you too miss Omura."

Rei quirked a brow at the use of her last name, but nodded. "Go back to the Makai with Hiei, if you go anywhere without notifying someone first I will consider you a suspect in this case."

Her eyes widened. But before she could say anything Hiei grabbed her elbow and once again started dragging her off.

* * *

She grumbled to herself as she sat by the cooking fire. She didn't know where Hiei had taken her, but it sure wasn't Tourin. The sky was a deep purple with streaks of red, lightning flashes could be seen once every while, though she heard no actual thunder. Their little clearing was surrounded by foreign trees and foliage. The whole place had a bit of a sinister feel to it.

Hiei had gone off to do god knows what and left her to do whatever. So she'd built a fire and was now happily roasting some fish she'd managed to catch using an improvised kind of net. Unlike human world, the Makai was much hotter. So she'd taken off her winter clothes and boots, creating a make shift kind of bed out of the items.

She hoped Hiei hadn't left her here to rot, honestly she wouldn't put it past him. Her existence seemed to mean about as much to him as a fly's would.

She sighed deeply, what was it she liked about him again?

She prodded the fish absentmindedly. He was the type to really go the extra mile for those he cared about, even if he sucked at expressing himself truthfully when it came to stuff like that, coming up with some flimsy excuse why it was necessary for him to save the day. He also had a wicked sense of humour, dry and usually delivered at just the right moment.  
On the other hand he was really stand offish, even towards friends, but she figured that was due to having been hurt one too many times.  
Hiei had been abandoned as a baby, then cast out again as an infant and shunned from then onwards. He was known as a ruthless killer, yet he had his own code of honour even back then. As far as she knew, he never attacked anyone without them coming at him first.  
Sure, he used his hiruseki stone as a lure for them to initiate fighting, but he never attacked without provocation. Deep down, he was a good guy.

But he may be a fire demon, his heart was definitely encased in ice, and she had no clue how to melt it.

She sighed again and checked the fish. Maybe she just wasn't the right person to do the melting. Her continuous attempts at getting closer to him seemed to have gone completely unnoticed, or if anything, gained a higher level of irritation from him.

Ascertaining that the fish wasn't cooked yet, she lay down on her back and stared up at the sky. Listening to the wind rustling the foreign trees. And then this whole Kameki thing. What the hell had happened to him? She thought Koenma was close to him, surely he kept tabs? But Hiei had mentioned the blood was old, at least a week.

She was ashamed now that she hadn't tried to get in touch, she hadn't really known how, but she could've asked Jack to go see him or something. She hadn't thought much of Kameki's lack of contact, she just figured the old man was busy with his own affairs. And she wasn't exactly reachable through speed dial here in the Makai.

Did it somehow have something to do with these demons and the devices in the Makai? Or was it unrelated? A threat towards her perhaps? Discourage her from participating? Though if that were the case they would've relayed the threat to her, rather than waiting a week or more for her to find her teacher's home in shambles. Koenma had asked her if Kameki had any enemies, in all truth she knew very little about her teacher. She hadn't even known if he would have family over for christmas or not. She didn't even know if he had family at all. She'd just assumed he was trustworthy, since Koenma was the one who had entrusted her to him.

She groaned and laid her arm over her eyes. She just hoped he wasn't dead, that old turtle was tough as leather, surely he wouldn't have just died like that.

"Your cooking skills are almost as impressive as Kuwabara's strategic insight."

She sat up to find Hiei crouched beside the fire, one of the fish leaning precariously close to the flames and turning a crispy shade of black because of it.

She shot forward and reached for it, pushing the stick back straight and shaking her hand as she burnt her finger. "Ouch, damn." She sucked the burn delicately as she scowled at him.  
She noticed his eyes flicked to her mouth for the barest of seconds, making her heart stop for a moment before he looked away again.

"Where'd you run off to anyway?"

She tried to remain aloof, but she couldn't deny her heartbeat seemed to have picked up the pace slightly. Did he find her physically attractive at all? She did hope so, but there was no way to know.

"Mukuro likes to be made aware of people residing in her territory."

She nodded, but then frowned slightly.

"I thought the territories were abolished?"

Hiei just gave her a look that clearly stated she had the intelligence of a toddler if she believed that, to which she could only shrug somewhat defensively.

"What? It was the original stipulation of the tournament Yusuke made wasn't it? To unify demonworld under one ruler? Technically no one holds territory any longer then."

He casually picked up the non burnt fish and sat down, one leg bent to the side and the other knee raised as he leaned back on his right arm, nonchalantly eating the fish. She tried to send him a piercing look at the fact that he'd very ungentlemanly left her the burnt one, but knowing she'd provoke no reaction anyway she gave up and picked up her food.

"Centuries of rule and habit isn't swiped off the table so easily."

She sighed as she nibbled the hot fish. "Well at least Yusuke's idea prevented all out war between the three territories, that's something."

He looked at her a moment, which she tried to ignore, keeping her focus on eating around the burned bits of fish.

"I suppose you'd enter the tournament in hopes of getting demons to 'appreciate' humans? Honestly having one idealist on our team is sickening enough."

She rolled her eyes. "You really have an issue with Kuwabara don't you? And no, I don't intend to enter the Makai tournament in the first place, but if I would... and by some miracle I'd actually win it..." She paused a moment and then shrugged. "I dunno really, I'd probably end up deferring to you guys for advice. I barely know the Makai, or demons, I don't think I'd be very fit to rule them."

She flashed him a grin. "Though really I think it'd be best if one of you guys won and I could work for you instead. Surely my shielding could come in handy when breaking up fights and shit."

There was silence for a moment, both eating their food. It wasn't an awkward kind of silence, but she still couldn't keep from wondering what he was thinking. He'd never been quite so talkative with her before.

"You want to stay in the Makai then."

It was more of a statement than a question, but she looked at him curiously anyway, seeing him staring off somewhere in the distance.

"I was kind of joking, but yeah." She shrugged. "I like it here, it's beautiful, wild, free in a way the human's neatly organized world will never be. I wouldn't mind staying here."

She shrugged then as she looked at the fish carcass stuck to her little cooking stick. "I'm not very good at survival skills though, so I reckon I would actually need to get some kind of job here, or however you guys do things."

She smiled sheepishly as she noticed the exasperated look he gave her.

"A human in the Makai dying of starvation rather than ending up a snack, surely that'd be a first."

He snorted and she felt slightly victorious that her joke had amused him somewhat.

The sounds of all kinds of insects could be heard as the sun started to set, making the already dark sky even more ominous.

She deeply inhaled the air arround them for a moment before focussing on him again.

"So how come you didn't take me back to Tourin?"

His crimson eyes glowed like coals in the firelight as he looked at her again.

"Yusuke's in the ningenkai. And this climate offers more food and shelter."

She nodded, then looked slightly puzzled. "Then, how come you didn't take me to Mukuro?"

He scowled at her. "You think you can impose on everyone's hospitality now that you're entering a measly tournament alongside us? Think again onna."

She blushed a little in shame and looked away, sometimes it was easy to forget that they still didn't fully trust her. She supposed the only reason Hiei was with her at the moment was because Koenma had asked him to watch her while this situation with Kameki was getting resolved.

Biting her lip she hesitantly stared back at him again. He'd finished eating and was now lying on his back, arms behind his head, eyes closed and seeming to be in a completely relaxed position. He'd taken off his cloak, wearing his usual all black outfit. She wished she could touch him, she wanted to run her hands over his body, memorize every detail. She wanted to take away the bandages on his right arm and admire the tattoo she knew was hidden there. She wished she could peel away his layers and reveal who he truly was.

Sighing she shook her head and pushed herself up off the ground. She walked away from their little campsite to the creek she remembered passing earlier. Kneeling beside it she retied her hair in a ponytail and then started washing her hands and face before cupping and drinking some of the fresh water.

"Well well, what issss a scumptious little snack like you... doing all the way out here..?"

She froze, her eyes darting around the area. She hadn't sensed any demonic energy, but then, the demons raoming around Alaric were probably quite capable of suppressing it. "Perhaps... we should have some funnnn before I eat you? hmm?"

She narrowed her eyes, still unable to tell where the voice was coming from.  
"Hm.. how disssssappointing.. you don't smell scared at all.." She heard a rustling sound and, turning swiftly, noticed a snakelike creature dart forward from behind her. "Perhaps we can fix that!"

A sudden glint of light reflecting off metal could be seen right before the creature's head fell to the ground at her feet.

She looked up in surprise, ready to receive a scolding from Hiei for having let her guard down and not shielding herself when she should have. Only to blink in surprise when it wasn't Hiei who stood in front of her cleaning his blade, if a blade was what she could call it.

The strange little bell dangling from the large piercing in his forehead jingled merrily as he moved closer to her after replacing his massive circular weapon on his shoulder.

In the flesh, Shigure was an interesting combination of scary and weird.

He appeared to scrutinize her for a moment before straigthening with a kind of amused smirk on his face.

"Long time no see Hiei."

It was only then that she noticed Hiei had joined them, leaning against a tree with a bored expression on his face.

"Hn."

Noticing the blood from the severed head was pooling closer to her knees she quickly got to her feet and moved closer to Hiei. She had no idea what Shigure wanted, but she couldn't be sure he didn't intend to harm her either.

Shigure's smirk widened slightly when he noticed her direction. "Never would've pegged you to try out a human." He looked her over again. "She's a pretty one though, might want to be careful not to end up breaking her in half. Though judging by the lack of bruising, you've been keeping yourself in check quite admirably."

Realizing his meaning, she turned beet red. The fact that the man sounded dead serious didn't help the matter. Hiei only scoffed, she was beginning to believe it was impossible to embarrass him.

"What do you want?"

Turning serious again, Shigure's eyes moved back to Hiei. "Mukuro-sama asked me to relay a message."

Hiei merely stared at him, showing he was listening. His posture ever quasi relaxed, yet looking ready to fight whenever the situation would call for it.  
Not sure how to read the situation, Rei moved slightly closer to him again, keeping her eyes on Shigure's tall figure.

"Koechi's tournament was moved up. Preliminaries start tomorrow."


End file.
